Hidden in Sight (52 page)

Now the platforms held dust and most of the children had been stolen.

Skalet wasn't moving. I wasn't sure she breathed until I heard a tiny gasp. I squeezed her hand as tightly as I could, all too aware we weren't alone and that memories of Ersh or home weren't going to help us now. We'd been—expected.

Pa-Admiral Mocktap.
I knew her face, even if she wouldn't know this one of mine. We'd sat on the bridge of the
Trium Set
together, those years ago, attempting to defeat a web-being with Human technology.

She knew Paul's. I saw the recognition in her eyes as they slid past Skalet. A slight widening of surprise as she saw Kearn.

Rudy Lefebvre.
I wanted to feel reassured by the sight of his face, but it wasn't familiar. He stood at attention beside the chair where Mocktap sat enthroned, dressed in a formal Commonwealth uniform, and only his lack of tattoos made him look other than Kraal. His face was pale and set into hard lines, as though he faced an unpleasant but necessary task. He didn't look at me or Paul or Kearn. His eyes never left Skalet.

Kraal
. The rest of the room was filled with black-garbed figures—tattooed with allegiances to Mocktap as well as other House names—as well as their machines; the former ominously intent on us, the latter droning busily to themselves.

“Welcome, Your Eminence,” Mocktap said. “You honor us with your presence.” Her eyes locked on mine for a moment, and she frowned as if unsure what I was. Or sure, but confused why I was here.
Either,
I thought with a chill,
implied she knew too much.

I might have imagined Skalet's dismay at our surroundings. Her voice was controlled and level, with a nice touch of irritation. “If so, where are your manners, Mocktap? I see no serpitay. I hear no respect. You delayed this meeting.”

“My apologies, Your Eminence. There were matters to attend to—matters pertaining to your arrival.” There was a small table flanking her other side, with two cloth-covered objects on it. Mocktap lifted the cover from one, revealing a black-and-gold-bound book. “Including this. I believe I've found something you lost. Interesting reading, S'kal-ru.”

Skalet's temperature rose so quickly I thought she'd explode, so I pressed my foot against hers. Otherwise, I did my utmost to seem exactly as I looked: young, harmless, and above all, Human.

“Fool.” That one word, in Skalet's rich, throaty voice, echoed around the chamber. A few Kraal looked worried.

“How so?” Mocktap leaned back, crossing her booted feet.
Overconfident,
I added to myself. “Surely not because I know a traitor and confront her with proof. Or is it my seeing advantage for my House and taking it that so offends my mentor?”

“Fool. How many times more before you become a liability to your affiliates, Mocktap? Saying this once will do: killing Tumblers without understanding their nature. Your carelessness has brought a Ganthor battle fleet and will very shortly eradicate what remains of Mocktap along with whatever ‘advantage' you think you've found.” Skalet's skin cooled against mine as she spoke, despite the heat of her words. “As for that book and its contents?” She smiled. “When did it become treachery to raise my value to my affiliates? To strive for a House of my own? If so, then most here are descended from traitors.”

Mocktap surged to her feet. The Kraal nearest her put their hands to their weapons but I judged it too early to tell why. “Did you think you could—” an almost imperceptible hesitation and a glance at me, as if my presence made her change what she planned to say at the last possible instant, “—you could plot to abandon us, to strip power from your former affiliations? Undermine my command?”

“Do you actually believe you command here?” The scorn was vintage Skalet.

Mocktap took a step closer, away from her chair and Rudy. It wasn't by accident that this put her in the brightest spot of light. I'd noticed a trend to theatrics in all Kraal, including my web-kin. “These are my affiliates, S'kal-ru, not yours.”

Skalet opened her fingers, releasing my hand. I didn't move, beyond easing my hand to my side—not wanting to draw further attention to myself or, more importantly, draw attention from Skalet. We had no other way to win, besides words.

I refused to consider the alternative, not with the only living mass within reach walking on two feet and having a desire to live another day.

“Affiliation is earned, not claimed.” S'kal-ru turned as she spoke. “It is deserved, not taken.” She moved slowly, making sure to catch and hold the eyes of each Kraal in the room. Then she stopped, facing Mocktap again. “I should think the answer to that is quite clear.”

“Do you deny dropping off these—these spies!—before landing?”

Skalet smiled. “My valued informants? Considering you'd ordered them shot on sight, of course I did. Hubbar-ro?”

Another face familiar to my Ket-self. He stepped forward as though giving a report, not looking at Mocktap. “I was made aware of Her Eminence's concern for their safety in the event of any confusion. She informed us where to watch for their arrival.”

As if I'd said this out loud, I suddenly had Mocktap's attention. “You—you—” her finger stabbed at me. “You now affiliate with your own Enemy against us all?”

“My niece?” I felt Kearn's hands grip my shoulders as he spoke up, a tight hold as if he needed the support. I spared a moment to be amazed he dared touch me, a web-being, let alone attract the interest of over a hundred potentially hostile Kraal.
This particular me did seem very reassuring to Humans,
I concluded, although I worried about the potential complications of having another avowed uncle. I looked at the first to claim that title, Rudy, but his eyes remained in their disquieting fix on Skalet.

Kearn was still talking, in his fussiest, most worried voice. “Fem S'kal-ru promised me safe passage for her off this Moon. There are G-Ganthor, you realize. I really don't think there's time for all this talking.” This drew grim nods from more than a few.

When neither crew member of the
Octos Ra
volunteered that I'd arrived with Paul, not Lionel, I took an easier breath. Skalet had been right about their loyalty, at least.

Mocktap must have sensed her support slipping away, but there was no sign in her bearing. Kraal nobles acquired that erect, confident stance early—or didn't make it past puberty. “Niece?” she repeated, with a scornful laugh that utterly failed to measure up to my web-kin's standards. “Hom Kearn. There's no need for pretence here. You are safe from them, with me. I promise you. Now. We both know this isn't your niece—or a child at all. Tell them.”

He kept his hands where they were; I could feel their trembling and admired him even more. “I think I should know my own—”

“Yes! You should! This ‘child' isn't Human. Nor is S'kalru! If anyone should know that, it should be you, Kearn. You've hunted them for years! They are monsters! Shapeshifters!”

There are some laughs that are so rich and full, you can't help but smile to hear them. Such a laugh came from my web-kin, surrounded by enemies and the evidence of our own mortality. I felt a chill run down my spine.

“Not Human?” Skalet raised her arm and ripped the fabric of her sleeve. Taking her knife, she used the tip of its blade to draw a fine line of red down the skin of her forearm. “Quite the disguise,” she said, some of that laugh still in her voice.

The Kraal were convinced. It wasn't a movement away from Mocktap's side of the room so much as a shift of body weight, as each decided the more probable target should violence erupt.

Mocktap wasn't done. “You were here,” she shouted. “Here! Three hundred and forty-three years ago, to hide what my ancestor Sybil-ro gave you. In payment, you killed one of my House and poisoned her.” There were mutters now, ranging from incredulous to impatient. Mocktap must have sensed she'd lost them, for she suddenly whirled and grabbed what had been on the table, holding it up. “This is what we found here. This is what you are!”

If the mutterings grew louder, I didn't hear them. Nothing mattered but the flask in her hand and its brilliant blue contents. I felt Skalet tense herself to move, knew her hunger matched mine. Perhaps it was greater, since this was
Ersh.
But Skalet's needs no longer mattered, only mine. My flesh burned to cycle and acquire the web-mass before me. I dimly heard Kearn's yelp of surprise as his hands left me. I ...

There was only one other being in that room who knew what might happen—what was happening—although how a Human made the leap of understanding to grasp that Skalet and I could no longer control ourselves even Paul couldn't explain later. But he didn't hesitate. The knife he threw glanced against Mocktap's arm, startling her into dropping the flask. It fell to the floor, smashing open, blue splashing in broad arcs across the floor . . .

... where it sank into the stone, until nothing remained but fragments of plas.

I think Skalet would have killed him, if she hadn't been busy defending herself from Mocktap. The Kraal had leaped forward even as the flask shattered, her own knife in hand and a look of fury on her face.

Confusion and shouting erupted from all sides. Black-garbed figures blocked my view and I did my best to plunge through them, only to be grabbed from behind and held. “Are you trying to get killed?” Paul accused, not letting go. “Let her handle it.”

Calm descended, and silence.
Too quickly,
I worried, but then, these were Kraal. The situation hadn't been resolved, not yet, or they would be touching their tattoos to vow affiliation to one leader. Instead, they backed away, leaving room around the two rivals.

Skalet was standing. I sagged a little with relief, even though I'd been sure my web-kin could handle one aging admiral. Mocktap lay at her feet, propped up on an elbow, teeth drawn away from her lips in a snarl. I was surprised she still lived. Skalet must have had a reason; it wouldn't be mercy.

Then I noticed my web-kin was staring at the floor. She was standing where the flask had broken open. No blue remained. I could have told her it was hopeless, having tried to taste Ersh in stone before.

A drop of red cratered the dust at her feet.

I pulled free of Paul and moved to where I could see Skalet from the front. Her own knife was in her hand. Why was another hilt protruding from her waist? Even as I tried to find a way through to reach her, she straightened and looked right at me, then above me to the Kraal. “To whom are you affiliated?”

A roar of “S'kal-ru! S'kal-ru!” went up immediately, fingers lifting to tattoos.

When they paused for breath, Mocktap said, loudly and clearly: “Rudy.”

Rudy Lefebvre, who'd been like a statue through all of this, moved quickly enough now. He took two steps to find a clear line of sight and raised an odd-looking weapon, aiming it at Skalet. She dropped her knife to the floor then. Pressing one hand around the hilt in her flesh, she straightened, as if daring him to fire.

The room seemed to fill with insects as every Kraal powered up his or her weapon, bringing it to bear on Rudy.

Looking back on the moment, I might have acted a little impulsively. But I'd had more than enough of tall, black-garbed figures getting in my way. So it made perfect sense to me to duck between the nearest set of long legs and dash to my web-kin.

Skalet, in her own way as wise about my idea of sensible behavior as Paul, simply grabbed me by the neck with her free hand as I arrived and gave me a shove in the direction of my momentum, so I skidded along the floor well out of range.

I rolled over to glare at her. She raised a brow in dismissal, then returned to the new threat. “Rudy Lefebvre. I hadn't realized you were an affiliate of—this.”

“I'm not.”

“Don't tell me you believe this story about monsters?” Skalet asked, her voice its usual blend of magic and steel. I could see the cost as blood coated her fingers like a glove, soaking into the black of her clothing.

“I believe you tried to harm my friends. I believe you tried to have Paul killed at least once, maybe more than that.”

Well,
I thought without surprise,
so much for the Human's first impression of Skalet.

“A misunderstanding.” This from Paul, who'd worked his way through the crowd with a little more dignity than I. Kearn, I was glad to see, had stayed behind the first row of Kraal. “Stand down, Rudy. We've other problems right now.”

As if he hadn't heard, Rudy's eyes flickered to me, then back to Skalet. “How old are you?” he asked quite desperately.

The question puzzled the Kraal and brought a smile to Mocktap's face.

I climbed to my feet and brushed dust from the front of my clothes, wishing, not for the first time, to be anything more impressive.
How Skalet could stand this form, I couldn't begin to fathom.
“I am, Rudy Lefebvre,” I told him impatiently but kindly, “exactly as old as you see me, as is S'kal-ru. If that worries you for some reason, I suggest we sit down and discuss it like reasonable a—”
The word “adult” just didn't work.
“—beings. Later and hopefully with supper, because no one's fed me anything but appetizers today and I shall probably faint soon.”

Something slowly eased in his face. “I'd forgotten what you looked like,” he said, making no sense at all.