Close Encounters (25 page)

Thor slanted me a curious look. “He understands what you say to him?”

“Oh, yeah, he understands every word. And I can pick up his emotions, so we communicate pretty well.”

He gazed down at Crigo, who was now ignoring us in favor of staring into the dark toward the Dynatec camp. “Yes, I can feel them through you. Why is he so pleased?”

Uh-oh.

I straightened, a tingle of apprehension knotting my shoulders. “Max, what has Crigo been up to today?”

“After you returned to the village, he went back to watch the Dynatec people from the jungle and stayed for an hour. There was a small disturbance in the camp, and then he left, heading in the general direction of the mapping party. I thought he might be hunting, and he wasn’t near any humans or Buri so I didn’t keep track of him.”

“Is there any chance he caused the disturbance?” It was my turn to glare.

“I don’t think so, Kiera. He never went into the camp, just watched from a distance.”

Crigo raised his nose in the air, gave a disdainful sniff, and stalked into the building radiating injured pride.

Oh, this was just great. I’d hurt his feelings. No telling what he’d come up with to punish me.

Thor smiled. “He will survive.”

“Yeah, but I may not.”

He reached over and ran a hand down my damp hair. “You are tired?”

“Not really. Why? Is there something you want to do?”

An explicit image popped into my head. I sucked in a great lungful of air, nearly choked and then nodded vigorously. “Yes, I think we can manage that.”

I grabbed his hand and towed him back inside. And then came to a screeching halt.

Crigo was sprawled in the middle of the sleeping platform, faking snores.

Releasing Thor’s hand, I propped my hands on my hips. “Listen cat, that might be a large bed, but it’s not big enough for a Buri, a GEP and a rock cat. Now scram.”

He stopped snoring and regarded me through narrowly opened eyes, but didn’t move.

Okay, time to take more drastic action. Climbing onto the bed, I put both hands against him and shoved. He growled. I stopped pushing. Fast. Just because I heal in the blink of an eye doesn’t mean injuries don’t hurt.

I glanced at Thor, who was watching with interest, then back at Crigo. There had to be a solution to this problem. If physical strength wouldn’t work, maybe logic would.

“Here’s the thing,” I told Crigo. “Thor and I are going to have sex, and we’re going to have it on this bed whether you’re in it or not. So you have a choice. You can stay here and endure our amorous antics, or you can postpone your revenge, save it for another day.”

He stared at me, and I sighed. “Would it help if I said I was sorry, and that I’ll never ever doubt you again for as long as we live, cross my heart?”

With an air of majesty, he gave a grunt of patent disbelief, climbed down, and stalked off to explore the rest of the building.

I watched him leave and then turned to Thor with a smile.

It was several hours later when Crigo returned. I was curled up beside Thor, his arm around my waist, almost asleep.

The cat slipped softly to the side of the bed, gently butted my hand, and then went to sprawl in the door leading to the terrace. He’d forgiven me.

More content than I’d ever been in my life, I drifted the rest of the way into sleep.

It seemed like only a few minutes later when a horrible din erupted and I bolted upright in bed.

What in the thirteen hells…?

The sun was shining, and from the look of the shadows, had been for several hours. Moreover, I was alone. I searched frantically for the source of the noise and discovered what appeared to be approximately one hundred dragon birds frolicking in the pool and shower, and squabbling over the cleanser we’d left beside the water last night. They were scooping it up in tiny paws, dipping it into the water until it frothed, and then wallowing in the suds.

I had the distinct feeling that sleeping late every day was going to be out of the question in this room. But on the other hand, they
were
amusing. One popped up with a mound of foam on its head that looked like a big top hat, gave a smug
peep
, and used its wings to do a back flip in the water. Others gathered around the sides, preening, and I saw two chattering at each other as if they were old women at a social event, gossiping about the neighbors.

Thor suddenly stepped through the interior door, setting the entire bunch to scolding and squawking. He had to use the bond to talk to me, because there was no way to be heard over the noise.

You are hungry? Churka has brought food.

I’m starved. Give me a minute to dress and I’ll be right out.
I hopped out of bed, briefly contemplated donning a blue kechic, and then grabbed a clean jumpsuit, pulling it on before sliding my feet into my boots. Wearing the kechic might make Thor happy, but I had no idea what the day might bring. Besides, it just didn’t go with my weapon.

Speaking of which…I went and retrieved the blaster from a dragon bird who was examining it and my discarded clothes intently. “Take my word for it,” I told him. “They’re not edible.”

This particular creature was one I recognized as part of the flock that had followed me around from my first day on Orpheus Two. He tilted his head to one side, gave me a quizzical
cheep
, and then waddled back to his pals, wings half unfurled. It looked like he was getting braver every day.

After depositing the dirty jumpsuit in a basket near the door, I fastened the weapon around my waist, did a fast job of braiding my hair, and stepped into the hall.

Thor was standing near the front of the building, talking to someone in the smaller sitting room. Churka, I presumed.

I started toward him, then stopped and turned slowly toward the curtained door at the far end of the hall. We hadn’t gone through it last night, and I really needed to now.

The walls on either side of me went fuzzy and my vision tunneled. Involuntarily, I took a step toward the curtain.

Abruptly, Thor was in front of me, his hands on my cheeks, forcing my head up so I had to meet his eyes. “Kiera, look at me.”

I blinked once, then again before finally focusing on him. “What’s in there?” I asked as he tried to steer me back toward the front of the building.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” I put on the brakes. “If it’s nothing, why are you dragging me away from it?”

“You wouldn’t be interested in that area.”

There was such a stew of emotions coming from him that my curiosity immediately soared. I was picking up hope, regret and the tiniest fear of failure all at the same time.

“What is it? You might as well tell me and get it over with.”

He hesitated, glanced at the curtain, and then looked back. “It is the
Shushadeien
. The place where the Shushanna works.”

My brows snapped together in reflex. “You’re right. I’m not interested.”

That was wrong of me, and I knew it. I should be gathering any and every scrap of information that might lead to solving the Buri’s problems. But I couldn’t do it. Because I still remembered the odd shimmer I’d noticed during the ceremony, coming from the back of this building. I still felt the pull, the urge, to go…do something. What, I wasn’t sure, but the compulsion was gradually getting stronger, and that scared me down to my toes.

Being scared of something as insignificant as a room was a foreign sensation, and it didn’t sit well. I wasn’t a coward, I was the best damn agent Alien Affairs had.

Thor was watching me closely, that infuriatingly inscrutable expression on his face again, and I was picking up no emotions. He was simply waiting patiently, letting me decide for myself. Damn it. Now I had no choice.

With a sigh, I turned back toward the curtain, my feet dragging reluctantly on the cool stone. It didn’t take a Freud to figure out why this bothered me so much.

All I’d ever wanted out of life was to be as normal as possible in spite of the weirdness surrounding my creation. Now the Buri not only embraced my otherness, they expected me to ratchet it up a couple of notches. It was enough to make a girl pull her hair out by the roots.

But I could at least look at the room. No danger in that, right? It certainly didn’t mean I was agreeing to the plan the Buri had laid out for me. One quick peek, then we could get on with the breakfast Churka had brought.

I mentally checked the status of my stomach. Yep, I could eat.

Concentrating on my internal diversionary tactics, I lifted a hand and pushed the curtain aside. Then blinked in surprise. Whatever horrible thing I’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.

It looked like a giant filigreed birdcage. Five metal strips, each three inches wide, rose in equally spaced intervals from the spherical stone floor and then arched to meet a circle of metal way at the top.

At the bottom, the strips divided the stone floor into five pie-shaped wedges, and then swept up in the middle to form a waist-high pedestal aligned directly under the circle at the top.

Each strip was inlaid with a different color crystal. Amethyst, green, amber, blue and red, they climbed each strip individually and then swirled together on the top of the pedestal.

Like the stone in a ring, the biggest damn crystal I’d ever seen sat cradled on the pedestal. It was the size of two human heads and so black it seemed to suck light into its smooth facets.

And it wanted me. As I stood there, frozen in the doorway, I could feel its siren call dance inside my head, urging me forward.

Suddenly, my bond with Thor was small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, and it seemed silly that I’d ever worried about it. Because the power flowing from that crystal scared everything else right out of my head. What if someone evil, like—oh, Dorn and Frisk for instance—got their grubby hands on it?

“If they tried to use it, they would die.”

At the sound of Thor’s voice, I jumped and dropped the curtain. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“I did not sneak. I’ve been with you since you stepped out of the sleeping room,” he reminded me.

Oh, yeah. I was so absorbed in the crystal I’d forgotten that little fact. “Why would they die?”

“Anyone not a Shushanna who attempts to use the Limantti will die. Just as in the Rellantiim ceremony. It is attuned to you now. You are the only one who can control it.”

That didn’t give me a lot of comfort. Especially not with the word
control
tacked on in relation to myself. That the stone needed to be controlled at all scared me. That the Buri expected me to do so made me want to climb on board Max and head for parts unknown. Fast.

“And what if I can’t control it?”

Thor gazed down at me, worry clear in his dark eyes.

“Then it will control you.”

T
his just kept getting worse and worse. By nature, I’m an independent gal. There’s no way I want a hunk of quartz calling the shots for me. If I had to beat the crap out of a gemstone to retain my freedom, then I’d do it, even if it took a laser drill and a sledgehammer to finish it off.

I pulled the curtain aside again and stared at the crystal, thinking hard and fast. When Thor called it the Limantti, I heard “mother stone.” “Why
Limantti
?” I asked him.

“We believe it is the first living crystal, the one from which all others came.”

From behind us, I heard Churka murmur something to Thor. I hadn’t realized she’d followed him until then. He spoke to her quietly, and she hurried away, but once again I focused exclusively on the crystal.

If I were the only one who could control it, then I had to try, because there was a lot more at stake here than just the survival of the Buri, or bringing Dynatec to heel. Somehow I knew, down to the cellular level of my DNA that unleashed, this crystal could cause destruction on a scale unknown before now.

Barely aware of what I was I doing, I took a step into the Shushadeien.

And this time, Thor didn’t stop me.

The Limantti was right in front of me, close enough to touch. From deep inside its ebony facets lights glimmered and sparked, urged me onward.

Mesmerized, I slowly lifted my hands and cupped them around the crystal. I had a split second to realize its surface wasn’t cool but warm, warm and pulsing with life. Then, that same heat was moving up my arms, suffusing my body.

Startled, I tried to jerk back, but it was too late.

Light exploded inside my head, and the world fell away. A dizzying vertigo gripped me as I spun through space. For what seemed to be eons I watched galaxies form, spin into the distance. Planets were born and died, suns went nova.

Everywhere, there was life. So much life I couldn’t take it all in. Carbon based, silicon, gaseous, it didn’t matter. Everything was alive. Every tree, every rock, every blade of grass or clod of dirt, sun or planet. They all had a form of consciousness that clamored for my attention. It was alien, true, and in some cases slumberous, but I could feel their contentment when their chosen path was on course, their pain as they sickened and died.

And I knew that with one stray thought, I could destroy it all.

It was too much. I couldn’t hold it all, and yet it continued. My skin felt hypersensitive, as though I’d shatter if someone touched me. A scream built in my throat, but my teeth were clamped together so tightly only a whimper escaped.

Please
, I begged,
please stop
. Agony blazed through my mind, and for a blessed while, darkness descended and everything went away.

Kiera? Open your eyes
.

No
. Mentally, I tried to swat the voice away and pressed my eyes tightly closed in rebellious indignation.

You’ve been asleep for hours. The sun is high. It’s time to wake.

Asleep? Like hell I had. That damn thing had knocked me out and I didn’t appreciate it one bit.

Please, do it for me. You must eat.

Well, there was that. I could always find room for food. Experimentally, I cracked my eyes open a mere slit and peered up at Thor through my lashes. He tried to smile, but his face looked haggard, the skin pulled too tightly over his bones.

“Welcome back.” His hand brushed gently over my hair and then cradled my cheek.

I opened my eyes all the way. He was sitting on the side of the platform near my hip, leaning over me. “You were afraid for me. Why?”

He hesitated and then glanced to his right. My gaze followed his. We were back in our sleeping quarters and both Auntie Em and Elder stood silently beside the bed.

“For an instant when you fell, I could no longer feel our bond. I thought I’d lost you. However, it is back now.”

Warmth suffused me, along with distress that I’d inadvertently caused him pain. Before I could answer, Churka and Lurran bustled into the room, each carrying a tray of food and drinks.

“She’s awake.” The relief in Churka’s voice was evident as she spotted me.

I wasn’t asleep, damn it. I wished everyone would stop acting like I’d decided to take a little snooze in the middle of a formal diner for the leader of the Galactic Federation. But I forgave her when I saw the variety of food mounded on the tray.

Eagerly, I pushed myself up on the sleeping platform, surprised at how shaky my arms and legs felt. It was almost like what happened when I rapidly expended great amounts of energy.

Auntie Em piled pillows behind me while Churka deposited her tray on my lap. I dug in with relish, only pausing when it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard a peep from Max.

“He was concerned,” Thor told me. “The ship asked me to bring you outside so he could see you, and then told me you would be fine. He also said an abundance of food should be prepared for your awakening.”

I blinked in confusion. “He talked to you? How?”

“He talked to you. I heard him through the bond.”

“Max?”

“Yes, Kiera?”

“Did you scan me?”

“Yes, and there was nothing physically wrong except your body was burning calories a bit faster than usual. I assured your mate you’d be fine, but I don’t think he believed me.”

“Since when do you understand Buri?”

“At every possible chance I record your conversations and extrapolate the Buri meanings from your response. I’m becoming quite good at understanding them. In another day or two I should be able to complete a learning tape.”

With a grimace, I picked up a glass of juice to moisten my dry throat. “Just don’t neglect the other tests you’re running. They have top priority.”

“Yes, Kiera.”

The Buri suddenly caught my attention. All five of them were staring at me with emotions ranging from excitement to trepidation. That last one was coming from Thor. “What’s wrong?” I asked him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He glanced at Auntie Em again, and she nodded. “Tell her before she notices.”

“Notices what?”

Thor took the glass of juice from my hand and set it on the tray. Before I could protest, his fingers curled around my wrist and turned my right hand palm up. Shock ran through me as I looked down.

Covering my entire palm was a black outline of the crystal, every facet depicted in an exact replica of the real thing.

Frantically, I rubbed at it with my fingers even knowing I was wasting my time. This was no smudge, nor was it any kind of ink. Though I doubted it was visible to anyone else, to my sensitive eyesight there was a faint black glow emanating from the lines.

“Does she understand me?”

“Yes.” Thor moved aside and let Auntie Em take his place beside me.

“At first we were puzzled,” she said. “Never before has a Shushanna been so marked by the Limantti. In order to use it, she had to be in contact with the crystal.”

She paused and touched my palm with one finger. “After much thought, we realized that the Limantti has sealed you to its purpose. You will be able to call upon its powers from anywhere, because you carry a part of it with you. It is a great honor.”

My stomach clenched, the food I’d just consumed thinking seriously about making a return appearance. I forced it to stay put, shoved the tray aside, and jumped to my feet. “No.” I paced across the room, then back. “No, I won’t do it. I won’t use that thing. Not for the Buri, not for anyone. No one should have access to that much power. It’s not right. Do you realize what I could do if I use it? With one stray thought I could accidentally wipe out millions of lives.”

Heart pounding, I spun to face the Buri. “It’s alive, did you know that? I don’t know how, I don’t even know what it is, but it’s alive.”

“I know what it is,” Max inserted calmly.

“What?” I turned toward the terrace doors in surprise, as though I could see the ship from here. “You know?”

“Yes. I finished my tests on the quartz crystals several hours ago, but you told me to send the results to my archives before I informed you. I just completed the transmission.”

Weak kneed, I sank down on the edge of the sleeping platform. “Tell me.”

“As I suspected, the quartz is nothing more than ordinary quartz. It has, however, been infested with a microscopic alien life form that appears to feed on minute amounts of the silicon in the quartz without damaging its structure.”

An alien life form. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. “What else?”

“More tests will be needed, but it appears this life form is self-aware to an extent I can’t quantify. It exhibits two distinct characteristics. It loosely operates like a hive, with different colonies designated as workers, scouts, soldiers and nurses. Of course, those are merely my labels to explain the disparity between the types of organisms that inhabit each color of crystal.”

“If it’s a hive, then that damn thing”—I jabbed a finger in the general direction of the Limantti—“is the queen.”

“There’s a good possibility you’re right,” Max continued.

“You see, it reproduces by spreading like a virus, and the organisms near the Buri village are older than the ones farther out. I would venture to guess that if crystal samples were taken from the far side of Orpheus Two, we would find no trace of the life form as yet.”

“But sooner or later there will be.”

“Yes. And I’d make it sooner. They spread very fast.”

While we were talking, all the Buri except Thor had slipped from the room. I opened my clenched fist and gazed down at my palm. “So what does this mean?” I asked the ship.

“The mark on your palm? It would seem the Limantti has entered into symbiosis with you. Its purpose for doing so is unknown at this time.”

“Great. That makes me feel
so
much better. I’ve always dreamed of being joined at the hip with a weird alien whose motivations I don’t understand and who has the power to destroy the known universe.” My sarcasm was tinged with a touch of hysteria that Max caught immediately.

“There’s no need to panic. You’re fine. Better than fine if my scan is any indication.”

“How can I be better than fine?”

“Consider your normal condition after you rapidly expend large amounts of energy. You’re weak, you sweat profusely, and if you don’t refuel quickly, your body will shut down.”

“So?” I shrugged. “I was weak this time.”

“But not to the extent you normally are, and while you were hungry, you would have survived without the immediate intake of food. That’s because the Limantti is transferring small quantities of energy to you on a continuous basis.”

“I don’t care if it makes me immortal.” I stood and glanced at Thor. “I’m sorry. I know you say your people will die without a Shushanna, but I can’t do this. It’s too dangerous.”

He reached out and cupped my shoulders with his hands, rubbing gently. “Kiera, the Limantti has been with my people for thousands and thousands of cycles. Never has it done harm.”

“But it never had me before.”

His expression became thoughtful. “Is it truly the danger you fear?”

“Of course it is.” I stared up at him. “What else would it be?”

“You said it has always been your wish to be normal as possible. From the beginning you fought against becoming the Shushanna because you fear being different. Now we are asking you to become even more unusual than you were. Perhaps the peril you sense in the Limantti is to your dream of being normal, not to others.”

There was a ring of truth to his words that I couldn’t deny, but I also knew I was right about the power contained in the Limantti. After all, I was the one it had taken on a little universal day trip, not him. And at the moment, I could foresee absolutely nothing that would make me use that damn rock again.

“I’m sorry, Thor.” Mentally, I pleaded with him to understand. “If there’s any way to save your people without using the Limantti, I’ll find it. But I can’t be your Shushanna if it means working with that thing. I just can’t.”

I pulled away from him and walked to the terrace doors. “I’m going to help Max run some tests.”

What I was really doing was escaping, and we both knew it. I could feel him watching me with a sense of quiet desperation, overlaid with resignation, but as much as it hurt, I kept walking. I needed to put some distance between me and the Buri right now.

I crossed the village, ignoring the Buri that paused in their work as I went by, except to note the majority of them, both male and female, now wore swords in sheaths that crossed over their back. The ones worn by the females were smaller versions of the thicker, longer swords carried by the males, but still deadly-looking.

The second I was out of sight in the jungle, I stopped and rubbed my temples, wondering what to do next. Max didn’t need my help, and I had nowhere else to go.

Feeling more lost and alone than I’d ever felt before, I stood there with my head lowered, the Buri’s expectations bearing down on me like a ten-ton weight.

How could I help them when I couldn’t even help myself?

“Kiera?”

My head came up and I answered Max eagerly, wanting, needing any form of distraction. “Yes Max?”

“We may have a small problem.”

“What?” I started in his direction.

“It appears Lieutenant Karle has vanished.”

I came to an abrupt halt. “What do you mean, she’s vanished?”

“As you requested, she set up a time with me to be tested for psi abilities. She planned to come by yesterday evening after her mapping party returned. When she didn’t show up, I assumed she’d forgotten or had other duties that prevented her from contacting me. But she wasn’t with the mapping party this morning, and she’s not answering her comm unit. I’ve scanned the area where they were last working and found no trace of her.”

“What about Ghost?”

“He, too, seems to have vanished.”

A prescience of anger began to uncurl grasping fingers in my chest. I found the thread that connected me to Thor.
Thor, when was the last time you saw Ghost?
I sent him a mental image of the silver-haired, silver-eyed Buri.