Knowing (2 page)

The men looked down at data pads and then back up at her. “We are looking for Signy Alora.”

Leara blinked. “That is my daughter’s name, but what do you want with her?”

The men snapped into a sharp salute. “We have orders to bring her in to attend the celebration on the Nine mother ship.”

“Why? She has never been involved with the Nine. Have you, Ziggy?”

Ziggy winced. Her mother hated her nickname. For her to be using it she had to be stressed.

“Not that I am aware of, Mom. Can you let Dad know that nothing is wrong, but he will need to be here for the delivery van tomorrow morning?”

Leara bit her lip. “If you are sure that you want to go with them.”

She sighed. “Mom, I don’t think that I have any choice.”

“Ma’am, we have orders to bring her in. We also have confirming video that she is the woman we are looking for.”

Ziggy smiled and patted her mother’s hand. “It’s fine. Everything will be fine.”

Leara squeezed her hand. “If you are sure. Keep us posted on what is going on.”

Ziggy laughed. “As soon as I figure it out, you will know.”

The two men saluted again and escorted her out of her mother’s flower shop and into a wide bodied skimmer. The flying unit was technology of the Nine. They had been very generous to the settlers on their old world.

She settled on the passenger seat and in seconds they had lifted off the street and were a hundred feet over the city. Crowds were watching them fly away, and Ziggy waved to a few familiar faces.

“Where are we going?”

“The launch area. You will travel to the mother ship via shuttle in the custody of the Nine.”

She nodded. There was nothing else to do. She had chosen her options and while she had never expected to be found out, she had prepared herself for the eventuality.

She left custody of the Gaian military and walked across the tarmac to the shuttle where three officers of the Nine were waiting.

The officers she was facing were of the Giant, Dwarf, and Fairy persuasion. Three of the nine branches of the Nine.

They saluted and helped her up the stairs, settling her in her seat before lifting off. She knotted her fingers together. The light touch of the Giant’s hand had given her basic information on how to fly the shuttle as well as where all of the emergency supplies were.

Since her time on the ship, she picked information out of people much more easily. It almost flowed out of them at her lightest touch.

She sat back and watched the men who had been asked to pick her up. It had come as a shock that the ship found back on earth two hundred years ago had been a ship of the Nine. When the colonists piled aboard, it took them back to its home.

Ziggy was a third generation Gaian. From the Nine archives, the very soil of Gaia or Underhill created a genetic potential that would soon begin to occur in the humans now living there.

She
was one of those new humans. Born with the ability to gain knowledge from those around her, she found the knowing was the hardest thing to deal with when you got information you didn’t want.

She waited. While the males sent her friendly glances, they didn’t offer to engage her in conversation. She idly wondered what kind of trouble she was in and how bad it actually was.

The feeling of leaving the planet’s surface wasn’t nearly the jarring sensation of her previous capture. The giant piloting the ship moved them smoothly through the layers of atmosphere and to the mother ship beyond.

Ziggy watched the huge silvery bulk get closer and closer before she had the thought that she had been fighting since she saw the men in her mother’s flower shop.

How did they find me?

Chapter Three

The fairy held his hand out to her and assisted her from her seat. Ziggy was a little wobbly but her talent surged up and did a rapid reading of the man holding her hand. He was a medic and he was studying human physiology.

He found her fascinating.

She blinked and tried not to show her nervousness. Despite the folded wings and pointed ears he looked as far from the minute flitting creatures of Earth myth as he could be. He looked more like a professional wrestler with wings.

Ziggy stood and gently withdrew her hand from his.

Instead of being offended, his lips quirked in amusement. “Please follow me, Ms. Alora.”

She inclined her head and walked down the steps and followed his wings through a shuttle bay and into the ship itself.

Behind her, the dwarf from the ship followed them as they walked to an internal monorail. A pod was waiting for them, a glowing crystal banded with metal. It looked to seat around six people, but no one entered but their triad.

She took the seat that the fairy showed her to and waited with her fingers knotted in her lap. The dwarf sat next to her and with a chime the pod on the monorail sealed shut and they started to move.

When the pod shifted around a corner, Ziggy swayed and the dwarf reached out to help her. He was a navigator and had a wife and two little ones here on the ship.

From his mind she saw star charts and calculations for travelling to planets she had never even imagined.

“Thank you. I wasn’t expecting the turn.” Her voice was soft but the fairy turned to smile at her.

He frowned as he noted the dwarf’s hand on her shoulder. “Makinaw, what are you doing?”

“Steadying her. It wouldn’t do for her to get a concussion before she sees the council.”

She swallowed. “The council?”

The dwarf nodded. “Yes. Tomorrow morning, before the ceremony you will meet with the council of the Nine.”

“Why?”

“We are not aware of why you have been called to the ship, we only know that if the councillors want to speak with you, we have to bring you.”

“What am I supposed to do until tomorrow?”

The pod rocked and shimmied as it passed through the ship’s common areas, the vistas of the interior of the huge ship were lost on her as her stomach knotted with nerves.

The fairy grinned. “We have been ordered to take you to VIP quarters. The other humans are simply being brought in for the event tomorrow, but the quarters have been booked for you for at least a week.”

“Tonos! Need to know.” The dwarf growled.

The fairy scowled at him. “Mak, you think she doesn’t need to know that?”

“Gentlemen, please. If it is a problem, I will just wait until tomorrow.”

The pod slid to a halt and the door opened.

Makinaw extended his hand and helped her to her feet. They left the pod and he led her past two guards, both of the tree clan of the Nine.

“You will remain in your quarters until someone comes for you tomorrow morning. Appropriate attire has been selected and will be delivered.” Makinaw patted her hand lightly.

The doors were framed with ornate carvings and as Tonos pressed the lock to open one of the rooms she noticed that the elegance continued within. She passed the fairy with a slight nod and he gave her an appreciative leer.

Makinaw punched him in the ribs and the door closed. The pale light panel next to it went from white to red and Ziggy knew she was locked in.

The rooms were huge. An entertaining room was the first that she walked into and the bedroom was just beyond through another ornate archway.

She rifled through the dwarf’s knowledge and picked out the instructions for using the entertainment unit. Seeing as how she was basically under arrest, she spent her evening watching the entertainment options offered by the mother ship of the Nine.

As she watched the images appear on the wall across from the couch she flipped through the options and though she was curious, she steered clear of the sexual programming. There were only so many traumas she was willing to endure in a day and watching members of the Nine having sex was far beyond her tolerance for weirdness.

* * * *

Councillor Rothaway smiled as the request for entertainment vids came up on the screen. “Do you believe me now?”

He had tried to explain to his people that he had met a Gaian with the ability to speak the language of the Nine. While his survival and that of the rest of his team had proved that someone else had a hand in their escape from the Tokkel ship, it was only in the past week when the salvaged vessel was dredged from the ocean that he was able prove his experience was not just a hallucination born of torture.

“Yes, fine. You are right. She knows our language. I am still not sure what it means.” Lyneer brought up the scans of the human and blinked rapidly.

“How long have you been out of the tanks?” Rothaway scowled.

“I have the humidity turned up in my chambers, I am just surprised at how easily she moves in our environment. What have you been able to learn?”

Rothaway sat back and stared at the images of Signy Alora on his screens. “She is third generation Gaian. There were no reports of her being taken and none of the survivors could recall precisely what the woman looked like. They only know that she released them and sent them all home. Aside from that they were not very concerned with what she looked like.”

“What about satellite scans?”

He grinned. “None of the satellites were operational in the area where the escape pod was found.”

Lyneer blinked again. “How could she know where to land?”

Rothaway smiled. “That is the mystery that I want to solve. Her knowledge base is far beyond anyone from her world.”

He didn’t mention that her lips were soft, she smelled like roses and he wanted to feel the silky skin of her hips under his hands again. She woke every shifter instinct that he had and that alone had shaken him to his core. When he recovered, he did so with the realization that his mate was down on the planet below and he simply needed to find her.

The issue of finding her had seemed simple until the images of the crashed ship began to stream over the Gaian news reports. His confusion had stemmed from the sense that she was alive and well.

Signy Alora would face the council tomorrow and when the footage from the Tokkel ship was displayed she would have to explain what it was that she did and how precisely she did it.

Chapter Four

Ziggy jerked awake at the knock on the bedroom wall. She rolled over and blinked sleepily, trying to bring the newcomer into focus. “Hello?”

“Please excuse the intrusion, Ms. Alara. I have your clothing for the meeting and the official reception.” The male was distinctly green, even to Ziggy’s exhausted gaze.

“Oh. Hello.” She sat up and looked down at herself, sighing in relief when she noted that she had slept in her clothes.

The male was leaning in her doorway and he had a silky wave of blue fabric over his arm.

“I have your clothing for the event today. Your breakfast is waiting. Please prepare and join me in the outer room.”

He stepped forward and put the gown on the edge of her bed. She simply watched him drop it off and as he walked out she stared after him with her eyes wide.

When he was in the outer room she shifted and grabbed the dress while easing into the lavatory. She leaned against the closed door and blinked rapidly. “Whew.”

With an eye toward speed she stripped and left her clothing in a pile, entering what her mind told her was the cleansing unit.

The shower was peculiar. She stood on the depressions that were meant for feet and pressed the only button in the area while she closed her eyes.

Light and wind struck her, startling a yelp out of her. It was exactly as the memories had shown her. Her body tingled but she was squeaky clean.

Ziggy bit her lip as she held up the dress. It was long, elegant, and would not be appreciative of underwear. The fabric would cling tightly where it touched and she didn’t want to destroy the line of the garment, but she was not keen on going commando.

She slithered into the gown and admired the fit in the long mirror. It certainly was flattering, and the deep blue made her midnight eyes bright and mysterious at the same time.

Her long brown hair was hanging straight, the side effect of the cleansing unit. It removed all oil and dirt but it acted as a flat iron.

The rumble of her stomach drove her out of the bathroom after she had attended to all other morning matters including a peculiar toothbrush.

She peeked around the corner of her bedroom, watching him at the dining table. “Are there shoes to go with this gown?”

The male turned slowly and smiled. “Of course. By the door. Now, come and have something to eat. Our cooks made an effort to provide you with something familiar.”

She sniffed appreciatively as he lifted the lid on the tray. Eggs, toast, meat and a side of an unusual fruit were a charming way to start the day.

Eating out of reflex was the only way she could keep from staring at the man across from her. The gill slits on his neck were obvious even though she kept her head aimed at her food.

“The councillors are excited to meet you.”

She almost choked on a piece of succulent fruit that crossed the line between berry and melon.

“What? How many people know about me?” She looked up and met his black gaze.

He chortled and there was a wicked gleam in his eyes. “You have been a creature of myth and legend for the last five years. The survivors spoke of you, but since you were never reported abducted there were no records to tie you to the Tokkel ship.”

“What is your name?”

“I am Commander Lyneer, personal assistant and bodyguard to the shifter councillor.”

She blinked. “But you are a mer. Why would you work for a shifter?”

He tilted his head. “All questions will be answered in time. But the mother ship of the Nine mixes species whenever it can to relieve racial tensions.”

She swallowed and took a sip of the water on her tray. “Well, I suppose that we should get going.”

He smiled. “You are correct. I should have been earlier but I was ordered to let you sleep in.”

Ziggy didn’t ask who had given the order. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know.

It was comforting to know that the men in the life pods had survived. Launching an escape pod during a firefight was never a good idea, but there had been little choice.