Plague of Memory (22 page)

we were permitted to disembark. I made a point to keep both Marel and CaurVar close to me and Reever. If there were to be any violence, I intended to pick them up and carry them back onto the launch. Whatever the tensions were between our peoples, the children did not deserve to be caught in the middle of them.

A large and nervous-looking female stood waiting with SubAkade TssVar at the base of the docking ramp, and relaxed only when she saw CaurVar.

"That is my mother," the young Hsktskt male said, sounding more subdued now. "She does not seem pleased to see me."

"Make no mistake, child," I said, holding Marel's hand a little tighter. "She is."

I walked up to UgessVa and made a cautious gesture of greeting. What would a mother say to another mother? "Your son's behavior while he was with us on our ship does you credit," I said. "I regret the mistake that kept him parted from you."

"You cared for him as I would, which is all I could ask," she replied, turning her head to glare briefly at her mate. "You have our gratitude, Healer."

I did not see ChoVa present, but thought perhaps she might have been summoned back to attend the Hanar. I rested my hand on Marel's curly blond head. "This is Marel, the daughter of my body. She played a small part in concealing CaurVar until your men had left the ship. Marel wishes to express her regret for that."

"We didn't want to make you sad, Lady TssVar," my daughter said, her big eyes wide as she looked
up at the relieved mother. "Please don't be angry at CaurVar. I helped him hide from the crew until we got hungry." Her bottom lip wobbled. "It's my fault he's in trouble."

CaurVar shuffled and looked slightly embarrassed. "No, the fault was mine. I did not wish to come home. I am afraid of the plague, Mother. I thought I would not become infected if I stayed with the warm-blooded—with Marel and her people."

"Is there to be no blame assigned to me?" TssVar asked quietly. "I did not attend to CaurVar when we departed the ship. He should not have been able to escape my notice to remain behind." He seemed almost proud that the young male had.

"My careless remarks drove you and your people from the
Sunlace,"
Squilyp put in. His face turned dark pink as everyone looked at him. "The blame lies with me. I should have given my gratitude to your daughter for providing assistance to my mate while she was in labor. What I said instead was selfish and ungracious. I beg your pardon, SubAkade TssVar."

Marel smiled up at the huge Hsktskt. "Can we all say we're sorry and no one will be upset anymore?"

"Sometimes it is not so simple, child," he said, squatting down so that they were almost on eye level. "Words and actions can be used to make peace, but they can also be wielded as weapons to start a war."

"Do we have to have war again?" my daughter complained- "It hurts people and makes my mama
go away for a long time. She doesn't remember who she was before the last war yet."

"I will work on that with your people." TssVar stood. "My superior, Akade OtokVar, died while in cryopreservation at his family's private medical facility. My daughter has returned to the palace to ensure that our ruler has not yet contracted the pathogen." He looked across the compound at a large group of guards and other Hsktskt. "After the rite of elevation, I will be relocating to the palace to assume the Akade's offices. It will likely be some time before I am able to become personally involved in your efforts to cure this plague."

He was worried that we would not, that much was obvious. I sensed something more to what he was saying, as if he were trying to deliver a warning. Was the Hanar prepared to use our lack of progress as an excuse to attack us, or the League?

"If I may work with ChoVa," I said, "I will do whatever I can to find treatment and, if possible, develop a vaccine to protect those who have not been infected."

"That is all I can ask of you," he said, mocking his mate's earlier words to me. He moved two limbs to indicate those waiting on the steps of the main dwelling. "I consider this matter settled between us. We must begin the rite now, before the sun reaches its zenith."

"I will take the children to the recreation area," UgessVa said, gesturing to a little garden a short distance away. She exchanged a look with me that promised they would be safe there, and I nodded.

I knew nothing of Hsktskt ceremony, and found the solemnity of TssVar's rite touching. With his family gathered around him, he and several older males recited the names of all those who had shared their blood back some thirty generations. This was done rapidly and in hissing monotones, but the blending of the differently pitched male voices almost made it sound lyrical.

One of the older females brought forth a large silver alloy ring set with a strange multicolored stone, and knelt before TssVar with her head angled back in the submissive position. A second female took the ring and, after producing a sharp, thin-bladed dagger, stabbed TssVar in the throat.

The sight of blood made me tense, but Reever put a hand on my arm.

"She pierces his hide to accommodate the Akade ring of office," he murmured to me. "It acts as one of our location and monitoring implants as well as a visible reminder for other citizens of his status."

"Why must it be implanted?"

"As proof of identity and successive right," my husband said. "Once inserted, the ring cannot be removed until the wearer is dead."

I would have questioned why TssVar would need such a thing, but an odd sense of being watched came over me, and I scanned the area. Other than our landing party and the assembled members of TssVar's line, there was no one else present. Something seemed to brush past me, though, and I heard a series of cracking sounds.

Reever must have heard it as well, for he turned completely around, looking as I did.

210 S. L. Viehl

UgessVa came to join us, holding CaurVar and Marel by the hands. "It may be a ground tremor."

The wall nearest to us began to shake, the stone creating more of the noises as it cracked. Bits of mortar popped from the closely fitted seams as if the wall were spitting them at us.

'."That," I said, pointing to it, "is going to collapse."

Reever followed my gaze and snatched Marel up, pushing her into my arms. "To the launch. Now. Run."

A rumble roared from behind the wall, which did not collapse but instead exploded. Hissed orders and stone falling blended with the whine of weapons being enabled. Oddly shaped shadows chased each other on the ground, and as I ran with Marel for the docking area I tilted my head back to see what was making them.

The sky above us filled with strange, dusty-colored vehicles with wide half domes on the bottom that absorbed the displacer bursts that TssVar's guards fired at them. Two more blasts hit the walls on either side of us, destroying them. I held my daughter close and stopped, peering through the dust and falling debris to find the clearest path back to the launch.

Something swooped down in the madness and, like the claws of a ptar, seized my shoulders. One of the Adan wrapped his arms around us, trying to pull us back, but only managed to pull Marel from my arms. He fell as whatever had me fired at him, rolling over to shield my daughter with his body while I was jerked into the air.

PLAGUE OF MEMORY 211

I fought wildly and screamed for my husband until something struck the back of my head and I fell against my captor. I felt my consciousness slipping away even as powerful hands dragged me to my feet.

"Etavasss,"
a Jorenian voice said.

"No," I muttered, and fell into the black.

TWELVE

I woke to bright light, silence, sand, and chains.

The landscape around me rolled out, a flat and lifeless ocean of dark sand forming motionless waves that curled and stretched unto the horizon. Four poles had been sunk into the sand and a rough, thick cloth stretched between them to form a canopy over my head. My wrists, knees, and ankles had been bound together with lengths of alloy links. I tested them, and found them to be lightweight but impossible to break. All around the canopy were other temporary shelters and structures, although they appeared much more hastily erected than those the men of the iiskars regularly erected for their tribes.

I tucked in my chin. Beneath me, more of the crudely woven material made a rug to cushion me, and through it I felt the heat of the sand. I smelled the sharp odor of a Hsktskt and rolled, almost bouncing into two brown, scuffed boots and two blue, six-fingered hands.

I looked up into white-within-white eyes, and the scarred face of the outlaw I had seen at the medical facility. He crouched by the edge of the rug and watched me with visible interest. He smelled and dressed like a Hsktskt, but he had the body hair and skin of a Jorenian.

To know I had not imagined him was a small relief; one I discarded as soon as I remembered the attack on TssVar's estate and the Adan rolling to the ground with Marel.

"Reever." I jerked my head up and tried to see around me. "My daughter. What have you done with them?"

The sound of my voice made him nod. He reached to one side to retrieve a round, manacle-like device that he clipped around my neck. The rounded, heavy alloy pressed odd bumps lining the inside of it against my skin.

"You must wear this," he said, his lips moving differently than the sounds I was hearing in my ears. "It will translate our words so we may understand each other."

He was speaking the soft, hissing language of the Hsktskt, not Jorenian. I felt too startled by this to do more than nod.

"You are a healer, yes? And flesh, not scaled, like me. I have never seen one of my kind up close." He shifted around me, studying me as he might a carcass he wished to butcher. One of his hands briefly covered my left breast. "You are female, yes?"

I wanted to scream at him to stop, and barely restrained myself in time. "Yes. I am lis—Terran. I am female. I will answer any questions you have, Kheder, if you remove my chains."

He cocked hfe head. "What is a kheder?"

"A leader. A male who is shown respect."

"I am the seduhanar here. You will show me

respect." He reached over to brush some of the sand from my face. "What does that mean?" I asked, not understanding his title. "Seduhanar?"

"Master of war." He inspected me from head to toe. "You are young and very small. When I saw you at the killing place, I thought you a child. Then I saw you with the smaller female at the Akade's estate, and thought differently. You are full grown, are you not?"

I nodded. I had to bite my lip to keep from asking about Marel, and if she had been harmed during the attack.

"What are you called?" "Jam." The chains around my wrists shifted as I did, and I grimaced.'"Why did you abduct me?" "I ask. You answer." He reached out and fingered a strand of my hair. "You have this, like me. Why?"

"Hair? Why do I have hair?" I felt bewildered. "It grows from my scalp. It covers it and helps me retain my body heat."

"The people do not have hair. They have scales. They use thermals to maintain body temperature." He looked down at himself. "I am flesh. I do not have to do that." He didn't seem happy about the differences.

By "people" I assumed he was referring to the Hsktskt. "They are reptilian. We are humanoid."

"I
had scales, once," he told me. "When I was younger. They fell off before I was grown to this size. Did you have scales when you were smaller?"

"No." Why would a Jorenian male believe that he had once been covered in scales? Either the translator device was malfunctioning, or he was mentally defective. "May I ask one question?"

He considered that for a long moment. "One."

"May I speak to your leader, Seduhanar?"

He sat back on his haunches. "I am PyrsVar, the leader in this place." He smiled, and white Jorenian teeth filed to sharp points flashed. "I am a good war master, am I not? We evaded the new Akade's guards with little trouble. This was because I scouted the Akade's defenses. He let many attend the rite, so there were gaps in his grid. They were simple to exploit."

I did not care how easy the raid had been for him and his men, or how foolish TssVar had been about security. I needed to know his status in this group, and how I could use that to free us.

He unnerved me, particularly with how still he was when he spoke. I had never seen a Jorenian talk so much without once using his hands to make the accompanying gestures. He also seemed to enjoy boasting of his status and accomplishments, something I had never known the Jorenians on the ship to do.

I would appeal to his vanity first. "You are the leader of the group of outlaws that attacked Akade TssVar," I said) as if unsure.

He sighed. "Yes, outlaws, that is what the people call us. All of us, we are without line. I lead. You are my captive, and you will answer me. Why do you come here to Vtaga? Why were you at the killing place?"

"I was brought here to help the people. Some of them are very sick. The killing place is a hospital where those who are ill stay and are cared for until they are better." There was no surprise on his face as I said this, and I wondered if he even believed me. "In any case, I am a healer, not a soldier. It is not necessary to chain me."

"You might try to run away. The desert will eat you if you do." He stroked my hair as if I were a pet. "You are small and thin, and your skin is a strange color, but you please me."

"I am happy that I do." No, I wasn't. "If you remove my chains, I promise I will not run away from you. I do not want the desert to eat me." I had the feeling all of my blades had been taken from me, but they might have missed one or two.

PyrsVar thought about it as he toyed with my hair. "My men will shoot you if you try to run."

"I have told you that I will not." Running would be useless. I was going to have to steal one of their skimmer vehicles. "I am only a female, and a healer. What harm can I do to one such as you? You are a seduhanar, a master of war. You are more clever than the new Akade."