Shades of Gray (2 page)

The Sholan’s ears flicked back into invisibility. “What?” Kaid asked incredulously as he got hurriedly to his feet. “There must be some mistake.”

“None. We must go there instantly and resolve it.”

“What’s he doing there in the first place?” demanded Carrie, the only Human present, as she followed them out into the corridor. “And why has he taken the cubs with him? How did he even know where it was?”

“We will have to be asking him, Carrie,” said the small alien, looking up at her. “It seems they have been using their mental powers on our soldiers to gain access and to guard themselves from interference.”

“I’ll be tanning some hides tonight,” said Garras grimly, pacing along beside them as the other Sholans followed. “A warship is no place for childish pranks; Prince Zsurtul should know this. And where’s the youngling, Valden? And Tanjo? He’s their tutor, they should be with him!”

“I sent Tanjo to rest. He was up half the night with the cubs because they ate too many cookies,” said Carrie. “I should have known better than to leave Valden in charge of them!”

Toueesut stopped at an elevator. “This is no prank. Prince Zsurtul has routed communications there from the main Bridge and is transmitting a message even as we speak.”

Kaid could feel every hair across his shoulders and down his spine start to prickle in dread as his ears, which had raised themselves to their usual upright position, sank again.

“I can’t reach any of them mentally,” said Carrie as the elevator door slid open. “They’ve totally blanked the area. It’s as if there were psi dampers there.”

“Once a Valtegan, always a Valtegan,” muttered Rezac as they piled in. “He’s reverting to type now he’s their Emperor-elect.”

“No!” said Carrie sharply. “He’s a Prime, you know that. There has to be a rational explanation for this.”

“By Vartra’s bones, there had better be,” swore Kaid as they surged downward into the bowels of the Touiban battleship. His blood ran cold at the thought that they’d been harboring a snake in their midst all these months.

He hasn’t turned on us, Tallinu, you know he hasn’t,
Carrie sent to Kaid as she rested her hand reassuringly on his arm.

I hope you’re right, because if he and they combined can bring the
Tooshu
to her knees like this, the Gods alone know how we’re going to stop them!

 

Armed and armored Touibans, their mustaches bristling, waited to escort them past the obviously hastily erected force field bunkers at every corridor junction and iris. As they walked, Toueesut conversed rapidly in his trilling voice with their escort. They rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a group of four unarmored Touibans standing with weapons drawn. Their escort halted.

“They’ll let no one pass beyond here,” said Toueesut.

“This is ridiculous,” said Garras angrily. “How dare that young krolla involve our cubs like this!” As he started forward, Carrie grabbed his arm and held him back.

“There has to be a good reason for this
because
he’s involved the cubs,” she said, looking at them all one by one. “Before anyone gets hurt, we have to think this through.”

“You may enter,” said a voice from behind her in very badly pronounced Sholan.

Swinging round, she faced the four impassive Touibans. “Just me?”
They’re being mentally controlled
, she sent to the others.

“And Kaid.”

“Let these people go immediately,” said Kaid, tail lashing from side to side in a show of anger. “What you’re doing is wrong.”

“Soon. We must finish this first,” said one of the Touibans, his face blank and emotionless. “No harm is intended to anyone.”

With a low rumble of anger, Kaid, followed by Carrie, approached them. “The rest of you stay where you are,” he said over his shoulder. “That’s an order.”

Walking like a broken toy, the small alien turned and lurched alongside them until they came to a reinforced air lock. They stepped through it into an area unlike any they’d been in so far. Gone were the bright colors on walls and flooring so loved by their hosts; instead everything was a dull, uniform gray. Manual fire extinguishers were set every few feet, in addition to those in the upper walls and ceilings. The place was psychically dead as a morgue, and he didn’t like it.

“They’re here,” they heard the cub Gaylla’s voice say as their escort suddenly stopped in front of a doorway and barred their way. “Are you finished yet?”

“In a minute,” Zsurtul said quietly before lapsing into a torrent of Valtegan.

Straining his ears forward, Kaid tried to make out what the Prince was saying.

Carrie shook her head helplessly when he looked at her. “It’s a different dialect, and he’s speaking too fast,” she whispered.

“I’m finished. You can release our guards and let the Lieges in now,” said Zsurtul. “Thank you for your help.”

Suddenly, the psychic null zone vanished, and the guard beside them dropped his firearm and staggered against the wall.

Automatically Kaid reached out to catch him, murmuring a few comforting phrases before ordering him to rejoin his people. As he did, he sensed Zsurtul coming out of the Bridge a few feet away, followed by Valden and all five of the young Sholan cubs.

“This had better be good,” Kaid snarled, letting his canines show even as he watched the way the cubs formed a defensive circle around the young Prime, and noticed that Zsurtul had aged almost overnight.

Valden was left facing them, his jaw set in a firm line of determination. “It’s not what you think,” he began.

“How the hell could you know what I’m thinking?” demanded Kaid.

“I asked to see the recording General Kezule sent of the usurper K’hedduk’s broadcast,” said Zsurtul. His eyes closed briefly before he continued. “When I saw the head of my father and the others from the Royal Court that he’d killed, I remembered that before I left for Shola, he gave me the access codes for the Palace and the fleet, in case . . .” He ground to a halt, his large green eyes blinking rapidly.

Against his side, Gaylla pressed herself closer to him, slipping her small furred hand into his where it hung loosely by his side.

“I had to act immediately,” he continued, his voice firming again. “Before K’hedduk got into the system and changed the codes. I salvaged enough to contact the M’zullians and tell them there had been delays in K’hedduk’s plan and not to send reinforcements for another six weeks.” His brow creased as he looked from Kaid to Carrie and back. “Six weeks will be long enough for us to retake the Palace, won’t it? Maybe I should have said two months.”

“Six weeks will be fine,” said Kaid weakly, feeling the bottom drop out of his world in shock.

“You didn’t tell them . . .” began Carrie.

Zsurtul gave her a pained look. “Carrie, I’m not a fool. I didn’t let them know who I was.”

Dhyshac wormed his way to the front of their little group. “You can see why we had to help him, Father. There was no time to argue with everyone about it. As it was, Zsurtul was just in time.”

Gathering his scattered wits, Kaid scowled at them all. “That doesn’t excuse the liberties you took. Manipulating another person’s mind is a criminal offense,” he said, deciding not to mince his words. “Valden, you know that, you should have stopped them. Our Psychic Talent gives us power, but it also requires us to use it responsibly or face the consequences, and believe me, you will
all
face the consequences!”

“It was my idea,” said Gaylla, moving even closer to the Prince, if it were possible. “They won’t take my Talent away, will they?” Her eyes began to fill with tears. “I was very careful of my soldier. I only did it ’cos I know it’s important to stop people being hurt.”

“Gaylla’s not to blame,” said Dhyshac, lifting his chin. “It was me who organized it. If anyone’s to be punished, it should be me.”

Kaid was hard pressed to keep his face straight as he watched the unconscious signs of his son’s anxiety—the ears lying flat against his head and the nervous twitching of his tail—vying with his obvious attempts at bravery.

“I take full responsibility . . .” began Valden.

“Mine is the responsibility,” insisted Zsurtul, speaking over the top of the young male.

“I’ll take all that into consideration,” Kaid said roughly. “No one is going to have his or her Talent removed, but you all have some apologizing to do, and you must make amends to the Touiban soldiers, not to mention to Toueesut and the Captain of the
Tooshu
!”

“A week helping prepare vegetables in the kitchens is definitely in order,” said Carrie sternly, pointing in the direction they’d come. “Go there right now, after you’ve apologized!”

“Yes, Liegena,” the cubs mumbled, beginning to sidle abjectly past her.

Kaid kept his eyes on Zsurtul, gauging him carefully with his mind as well as his other senses, waiting to see what he’d do next, but the Prince remained silent, standing with his back straight, offering no excuses and no more explanations. He met Kaid’s eyes, though his normally sand-tinted green skin was paler than usual.

“Apart from buying us some much-needed time, what else were you able to achieve?” he asked quietly.

“I changed the main offworld comm frequency,” Zsurtul said. “The M’zullians and K’hedduk will be unable to reach each other on the old one. Their messages will come directly here for us to intercept.”

“Does that include the fleet orbiting round K’oish’ik?”

Zsurtul shook his head. “No, I left that alone so as not to arouse suspicion, but I changed the codes, so even if K’hedduk discovers them, he can’t access them. I could do nothing about the City or Palace defenses, he’d already changed those codes, but we do have control over the internal systems like power, water, and communications within the Palace.”

“We have?” Kaid began to smile. “Won’t K’hedduk suspect someone’s been tampering?”

“No. He’ll assume my father changed the codes before . . .” His voice broke on his final word.

“He’ll assume your father forgot to pass on the new codes,” Kaid finished for him.

“I should go and apologize now,” he said quietly. “It isn’t fair that the cubs should face the Touibans’ anger alone.”

Kaid stood aside for him to pass, calling out to him just before he rounded the corner.

“Next time, Prince Zsurtul, please have the courtesy to let us know what you plan to do beforehand. When you’re finished, I’ll expect you to join us in the conference room for a full debriefing. It’s time you became part of the planning team.”

“He did good, even if he went about it the wrong way,” said Carrie, putting her arm through Kaid’s as they began to walk back to Toueesut. “Six weeks! I can’t believe he managed to talk both sides into that!”

“He did do good,” Kaid agreed. “He’s not a child anymore. I have a feeling his mother has more Warrior-caste ancestry in her than anyone reckoned for.”

“I think his father knew that. Why else would he want his son trained by us? If we can know our genetic matches and form Leska Links with them, who’s to know the Primes can’t tell theirs?”

“The Primes aren’t telepathic, Carrie.”

When she replied with a small grunt, he said again, “They aren’t telepathic.”

Toueesut came forward. “I think perhaps you may be wrong about the Prince. Sensing what was going on I was through the harmonics we use, and to me it is obvious that he has sensitivity. Perhaps he is even empathic, like many of your Brothers and Sisters. Long have I been thinking this, and now I feel I am right.”

“Empathic?” echoed Carrie. “That’s not possible . . . is it?”

“Who knows?” said Toueesut, spreading his calloused hands. “These Primes are the Intellectual caste, more intelligent than others; it is possible it may have developed over time. I will make peace with my Captain over this. A feeling I have the young Prince felt compelled to act now. Among us are a very few who have sensings of future events . . .” Toueesut shrugged expressively and left the rest unsaid.

“He’s lived with us, worked with us. If he had any psi abilities, surely we’d have sensed them by now,” said Carrie, her tone doubtful

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Kaid. “We didn’t even guess about Toueesut and his people. Maybe whatever he has doesn’t work the same way our abilities do; perhaps it’s more like the Touibans’. He did say he had a bad feeling about returning home when he asked to stay on with us.”

“Well, there’s one way to find out. Test him,” said Carrie.

“No. He’s going through enough right now.”

“We need to know,” Carrie insisted.

“Ask the little ones,” suggested Toueesut as they all began to move down the corridor again. “If anyone knows, they will.”

“Is he purposely keeping me waiting?”

Kezule glanced away from the Brotherhood logo on his comm screen toward the black-pelted Sholan sprawled uncomfortably on the sofa on the other side of his office.