Heart Thief (14 page)

Samba bumped into him. She hissed and batted a paw at
his boots, leaving new scratches on them. Ruis grimaced.

I don't like this cloak. Hard to see you. Have to smell for you, and smells around here are not good
.

Ruis noted the odors of rotten garbage, urine, and vomit. He'd lived amongst those smells most of his life. The recollection of the metal odor of the Ship hit him with a longing for cleanliness, privacy, and safety.

“Let's go,” he said.

Let's go PLAY,
Samba corrected, turning to prance down the cracked sidewalk.
In the Ship. Much to explore. I went back and Ship said it found the problems with sound
. She sniffed.
We will listen to noises, then Ship will make awful feeling go away.

“An experiment,” Ruis said, cheered at the idea of a little scientific work. He rubbed his hands.

He bent down and stroked her. She purred. He saw nothing under her collar, but his fingertips tingled as he touched the same scale-like substance of his cloak. He tugged. Two pieces of cloth flashed, then vanished as they hit the ground.

Samba delicately lifted something up with her teeth. Ruis took it and pulled it through his hand since he was having trouble seeing it. “Gloves.”

“Yessssss.”
She picked up the other one and gave it to him. He donned them. They sagged around his fingers and the length was almost too short. The previous owner—the last Captain?—must have had wider, more workmanlike hands.

Ruis and Samba passed through a series of parks on the way to the Ship.

I went to your old place, like you said.
Samba sniffed again. Ruis had heard that her Sire, Zanth, was prone to sinus problems; he wondered if Samba was, too.
It was a hole. I have never lived in such a place. Looked bad. Smelled bad. Felt—

Ruis winced. “I'm a Null, Samba, without Flair. I lived where people would let me pay good gilt for holes.”

Samba stopped and looked up at him.
Flair interesting,
she meowed matter-of-factly,
but sometimes puts My hair on end.
She lifted her nose and flicked her tail back and forth.
No more living in holes. Now We have Ship.

“Yes.” They'd walked through a shabby Downwind park, through one middle-class grove with play areas, and were traversing a long, thin green in “noble country” that would lead to Landing Park. Between bare branches, Ruis saw the bright lights from the multistoried castles—noble Residences.

Silence broken by the sounds of nightwings and insects, the rustling of dry leaves and the soft sound of a brook, enveloped them. No one was out in the darkening night. Everyone else was with Family or friends or even strangers in taverns. He was alone again. As always. And now lonelier than ever before, since he'd known D'SilverFir's smile. He wished the D'SilverFir Residence was on his way to the Ship.

Samba snuffled beside him and his spirits lifted. He wasn't alone. He had Samba, his Fam. He had the Ship, his home.

 
 
Ailim sat behind her desk in the ResidenceDen, staring
impassively at her aunt Menzie. Ailim needed to discover the name of her enemy and what plots might endanger the SilverFirs. She felt just as much a judge as if she were hearing a case. A nasty tang coated her mouth. She shouldn't have to judge Family—and find them wanting.

Aunt Menzie sat ramrod straight across from her with bright spots of color on her cheeks. Her eyes narrowed and she sneered.

“I saw you at JudgmentGrove,” Ailim said.

Menzie's face went blank as if disconcerted. Now Ailim had the advantage. Menzie hadn't been smart enough to realize Ailim had spotted her.

“You are wrong,” Menzie said.

“No, I'm not. I must insist that you tell me who you met.”

“Don't take that tone of voice with me! I met no one. I wasn't near the grove. How dare you call me a liar.”

Ailim opened her shields, but no emotions or thoughts came from Menzie. Wisping out tendrils of Flair, Ailim still couldn't sense anything from Menzie, who until now broadcast with a ferocity that gave Ailim headaches.

Since probing was futile, Ailim concentrated on the odd, low hum with Flair-distorting waves that came from Menzie. The strange effects emanated from the center of Menzie's thin chest where something looked lumpy under her bodice. An amulet—something darkly powerful, not like the useless cheaptin crowns that never blocked Ailim's Flair.

Ailim concentrated on the fetish. Demons whispered in her ear that she would fail, fail, fail and the Family would shatter and the Residence would be lost—her deepest fears. Terror grabbed at her, spiking high, making her breath stick in her throat, slicking a fine film over the nape of her neck.

She snatched back her awareness and built additional barricades until she received nothing on the psychic plane from the malefic charm. But she trembled. Menzie's eyes held malice and her lips went from sneer to smirk.

Ailim was tired of confrontations, all the balancing she needed to do to keep the Family together, but she couldn't let that show. She straightened her spine. For simple pleasure, she nudged her feet beneath Primrose snoring under the desk.

“The new amulet you wear is a bane,” Ailim said.

Menzie looked shocked, her hand fluttered to her chest.

“A Family heirloom,” Menzie said with stiff lips.

“I don't think so. It reeks of newness.” And was tuned to specifically block Ailim's Flair and project negative energy.

“You can't know—” Menzie snapped her mouth shut.

Ailim was too tired to do anything but show a polite mask. “Which heirloom?”

Menzie's lower lip protruded.

“I don't like playing these games. ResidenceLibrary, list the Family heirlooms in Menzie's possession,” Ailim ordered.

The strong female voice of an ancestor answered Ailim. “The emerald beads carved like pinecones; the ancient gold pin in the shape of an evergreen with jeweled ornaments—”

“Enough!” Menzie ordered.

The ResidenceLibrary stopped. Menzie lifted her chin, color still blotched her cheeks. “The amulet is an heirloom of my late husband's Family.”

“Ah. You don't lie well, you shouldn't try.”

“I'm not lying.” She shifted in her seat.

“No?” Ailim frowned, trying to determine how dangerous the fetish and Menzie could be. “Please give the amulet to me.”

“No.”

Ailim gathered her Flair, feeling her braids lift. Psi action against a Family member wasn't easy.

“No!” Menzie clutched at the piece again. “The fetish is a gift to me and I value it. You can't take it from me. Try and I will cry abuse to the NobleCouncil. You don't want our quarrels to become public, do you?”

Ailim had already decided that she didn't right now, but couldn't let Menzie know that, couldn't back down. “If our quarrels become public, you have more to lose than I. We will all lose.”

Menzie tossed her head, looking for an instant like her daughter Cona. “I don't believe that. You exaggerate everything—the debt, the danger, even your silly feelings about my new charm—just to make yourself more important. I knew you were too young and immature to be GrandLady. The Council won't take the estate from us. It's not done.”

Ailim gritted her teeth.

Menzie stood and walked to the door, sneering again. “You can't take the amulet from me.”

“Perhaps not. But I can confine you to your room if you insist on wearing it. And I can dock fifty pieces of gilt a day from your housekeeping salary until you give the charm to me. ResidenceLibrary, note the reduction and forward the information to Donax to take into account for the budget.”

“Done,” said ResidenceLibrary.

“You can't!” screeched Menzie.

“I can. No matter how young and immature you think I am, I am in charge of the Family and our finances. Complain to the Council if you want. Residence housing and wages given to Family members for their services are at my discretion. Further, I can prove that you have been derelict in your duties. The carpet in this room, for instance, hadn't been cleaned in some time.”

Menzie stared down at the carpet with a puzzled expression.

“As I told Cona, should you care to move from D'SilverFir Residence and set up your own household—” Ailim started.

“You can't make me. You wouldn't dare.” Menzie trembled with fury. “This is my home.”

“Which we will lose if we don't work together.”

Menzie whipped the door open. “I don't believe you.”

“Leave the amulet on my desk when you've decided it's too expensive a bauble to keep,” Ailim said, her voice cool though a hot wave of frustration swept through her.

The door slammed behind Menzie, making Ailim's incipient headache bloom into full pain.

Ailim locked the door with a Word and let her head rest on the chair back. Primrose whimpered in her sleep and Ailim stopped a sigh of exhaustion and futility from breaking free.

She didn't know how she would cope with the Family. The Council had granted the loan because the SilverFirs were a FirstFamily, but should the Family splinter, there was no reason to let them keep the Residence and the estate. She could fend for herself, but she'd have to live with her failure.

How could she deal with the problem of the amulet? Confining her aunt to her room was a stopgap measure. Ailim sensed that destroying the horrible thing would take energy and skill, skill that she didn't have, nor did she have gilt to pay a master to disarm or destruct the fetish. That left an alliance, and with D'SilverFir as the beggar again.

Her head pounded. Her muscles had tightened into knots once more. No one would come here to soothe and massage her, not even the outcast Ruis Elder.

Ruis Elder—a Null who could handle the amulet without harm. Ailim had already promised to look into his case—something simple justice demanded—but perhaps he could help her. If she could get the amulet away from Menzie. If she could locate Ruis.

She rolled her tense neck and shoulders. His long fingers and stroking hands weren't here to ease her turmoil, nor was his tender touch that assured her that she was valued and cherished. The loneliness hurt worse than her head or her body.

She picked up Primrose and buried her face in soft puppy fur.

 
 
The next morning Ruis and the Ship designed a psychology
program to help him rid himself of the fury at being born a natural outcast. The procedure included interactive role-playing with various Celtan models—a brutish supervisor, the Petty guardsman, a haughty GraceLord. Ruis was pleased that he managed his anger as often as he failed the exercises. But he preferred the other portion of the program—hard work and anger diversion into the mental challenge of restoring Earth objects.

That afternoon, he studied the Ship's blueprints in his workroom. On a side table was his latest project, a nano-assembler the Ship was teaching him to repair.

“We've repaired and reprogrammed all our stellar-solar collecting skincells for better efficiency,” Ship said.

Ruis smiled. He was getting used to the Ship speaking in the plural. When asked, Ship stated it was an amalgam of departments integrated to communicate with him.

“We request further orders.”

“List priorities,” he said.

It did.

“Repair additional maintenance androids,” he decided.

“Yes, Captain,” the Ship replied.

Ruis whistled through his teeth. He was Captain. He tapped his finger on the map where the DNA Room was located. It was a huge room filled with samples of all the life of Earth, information on papyrus and film and “bubbles.” Encyclopedias of instructions and diagrams.

A tingle of awe ran up his spine at the thought of all that knowledge available to him. So many options for his learning and his life to follow that he struggled to choose what to do first.

But he knew what he wanted the most. He wanted to see D'SilverFir. The feel of her body under his hands had only made him want more.

Samba entered and jumped onto a cabinet. She hooked a paw in the door and something fell out. She peered down at it. When Ruis saw the satchel from his old rooms, he scowled. That was his shame. Heat flooded him as he flushed with guilt. He didn't like the way his gut twisted, either.

What's this?
She jumped down.

The two Earthsuns rolled out. Ruis grimaced. He'd have to return the gems to Stickle, the man who mistreated his apprentices. No way to avoid it. But the jewels had meant a lot to Ruis—they had meant safety from Bucus, days spent working with his mind and hands instead of his arms and back, being beaten by his supervisor.

He glanced at his watch. It was an ancient thing he'd found and fixed when a youth, depending upon a tiny spring to work. Ruis had replaced the insides many times, altering it and the face to reflect the seventy minute septhour and twenty-eight-hour days. A Celtan “timer” used Flair technology to measure time, impossible for him to wear.

Evening was falling. Soon he could leave the Ship and use the shadows of the autumn dusk to augment his cape.

He was taking a chance in returning the T'Birch necklace. His jaw clenched at the thought of the noble. The Birches had voted for Ruis's death. He could feel the red tide of anger rise.

Ruis swung a fist at the wall, and it connected with an absorbent panel the Ship had fashioned for him. He pummeled the strip until his breath came fast and his fury died.

Then he showered, grimacing wryly. Outside the Ship he couldn't afford to be reckless and vengeful against the nobles. That was a battle he could never hope to win. Outside, all the power was with them.