The others were watching us intently. Their moods suggested they didn't understand Iotic. They made no attempt to hide their interest, obviously having guessed I was more than an "aunt."
I spoke in Shay to Natil, the taller woman. "Hajune Tailor and I will stay here."
Hajune's protest burst into his mind. But he remained silent, standing like a wall at my side.
"You are sure?" Natil asked.
"Yes." I wanted to strangle the Manq. Slowly. No, it wasn't noble. It wasn't high-minded. But gods, I wanted it. Lacking that opportunity, I would settle for staying alive so I could regain power and gather our ISC forces against the Traders.
* * *
Hajune stood like a statue while I ate nutrient sticks from the food stored here. Experts had designed them specifically for my metabolism and body chemistry, so they not only appeased my hunger, they also settled my stomach. I sat against the wall, my legs stretched out on the designer moss, my body warm, and my thirst quenched. Ruddy sunlight poured through the portals above my head. After the last few days, this would have been heaven if Hajune hadn't been staring at me.
Had J'chabi known the full story, he would never have left me alone with Hajune. As a Rhon empath, I knew Hajune wouldn't attack me again. But convincing J'chabi would have been difficult, and I had no wish to argue the matter.
I considered Hajune. "Does it make you tired, standing so much? Please be comfortable."
"I watch." An edge came into his voice. "Always now, I will watch."
My contentment vanished. The Traders had left him that legacy: constant fear.
Vibrations shuddered the floor. A door scraped and footsteps rustled in the entrance tunnel. As I stood, Hajune moved between me and the entrance to this room, his weapon ready in his hands. He no longer carried his axe; J'chabi had given him a Lenard K16 laser carbine.
"Hajune Tailor," a voice said from the doorway. Looking past Hajune, I saw J'chabi with Natil. Their mood was sober.
"It pleases us to see you safe," I said. Then I winced. It pleases us? Talking that way wouldn't help hide my identity. It did relieve me that they were back, though.
Natil watched me with close scrutiny. "Your Shay is hard to understand. Strong is your Iotic accent."
Ach. So they knew. I said, "I regret the difficulty," but offered no other explanations.
"Have you news?" Hajune asked them.
J'chabi took a deep breath. "We found the Manq."
Hajune went very still. "Did you capture them?"
Natil answered. "Two." After a pause that went on too long, she added, "The other two killed themselves before we could take them."
A muscle twitched in Hajune's cheek. "So."
Sorrow softened J'chabi's voice. "Hajune Tailor— we found your wife."
7
Skyhold
Green and round, the hospital was part of the forest. It spanned the gigantic tripod bases of four trees. Inside, it had a small but modern facility. The doctor led Natil, J'chabi, Hajune, and me to a rounded chamber. Two small globes in one corner shed muted light over a bed against the far wall. A woman lay there with a pale green sheet pulled up to her shoulders. I barely recognized her as the person in Hajune's memories; this woman was wasted and still, her body gaunt under the sheet.
She was also alive.
Hajune made a strangled noise and strode past the doctor. But he froze when he reached the bed, as if he feared to extinguish the faint breath that clung to his wife's dying body.
The doctor, another tall Shay woman, joined him. "She has been in a coma."
His words were almost a whisper. "I saw her die."
The doctor's voice was infinitely gentle. "Her state mimics death. It is a defense against the unbearable." She started to lay her hand on his arm, then hesitated as if unsure how he would respond. Softly she said, "Sorry I am, so sorry."
My sadness deepened. Although I hadn't realized the Shay could go into a death trance, I knew other humanoid races that used such a defensive mechanism. The Razers must have taken her in the hope that she would revive. But it didn't work that way. The person died within a few days.
We withdrew then, not wanting to intrude on Hajune's final moments with his wife.
* * *
J'chabi spoke in Iotic. "No one uses our telop console now. We've tried to reconnect with the offworld nets, but we find no trace of the psiberweb. Without any means to leave Opalite, we have no idea what happened."
J'chabi, Natil, and I were in an alcove of the hospital. We sat on a wall bench, a ledge covered by engineered moss with cleansing properties that made it sterile. J'chabi balanced the laser carbine on his knees, guarding me while Hajune stayed with his wife. Natil watched us with her keen gaze. The room had several entrances, and medics passed through now and then, absorbed in their own affairs.
"Are any planetary computer networks working?" I asked.
J'chabi made an affirmative wave with his hand. "The city net failed when everything else collapsed, but we had it working within an hour." He paused. "The Traders who destroyed our port told us that you had died in the war."
Dryly I said, "I'm sure they wanted that to be true."
"I wish I could offer you offworld access. But we're an inconsequential settlement, one with low priority for repairs."
"Don't you, personally, have a top-priority link to ISC?" I had set it up myself, so he could reach Imperial Space Command no matter what.
"It is down also."
That finished off my last hope that some fragment of the psiberweb might still survive.
Footsteps padded nearby. Turning, I saw the doctor. She came over and sat next to J'chabi, her face weary. "Hajune Tailor is still with her. I think he could use some support." Softly she added, "He hurts so much."
So we went with her. Hajune's pain filled the hospital in a fog, one I had trouble moving through. Yet no one else seemed affected. My empath's mind was a curse now. It tore at me to feel his anguish and be unable to help. The injustice of it struck like a blow. He had recovered his wife only to lose her again.
We found him sitting on the bed holding his wife's hand. He glanced up as we entered, then went back to watching her face. J'chabi and I stood with him, and Natil stayed back, apparently assuming we knew him better. But none of us could really call him friend.
I laid my hand on his shoulder. "My sorry, Hajune Tailor."
He nodded, still looking at his wife. Her thoughts slumbered at the edges of my awareness. My mind skirted hers like a soft-footed animal searching for an entrance to a fortress.
I acted in pure instinct; my mental barriers dropped and my mind opened.
Come back,
I thought to her.
Hajune needs you. He loves you.
It wasn't until I started using biofeedback on myself that I realized what I was doing. Yes, I remembered. I had a talent for this. Humans had long known how to use biofeedback. Some empaths could turn that concentration outward, affecting others as well as themselves. I reached my mind out to Hajune's wife, my efforts aided by the biomech that enhanced my brain. But I still couldn't connect. Not alone. Instinctively, I drew Hajune into our link.
Skyhold, come back,
he thought.
Without you, I am nothing.
No response. His wife continued to fade.
Skyhold, truly do I need you.
Nothing.
Please.
His thoughts ached.
I would like to say good-bye.
Still nothing. Hajune bent his head and tears slid down his face.
I gently withdrew my mind. It was just him and Skyhold now. I didn't think he realized we had all been in a link. Although I could open the mental door, only he could truly reach her. She probably had too little of her conscious mind left to sense him, but perhaps this would give him a small portion of closeness with her in their final hours together.
* * *
J'chabi, Natil, and I stayed in the room, seated on a wall bench. The doctor was at a console, monitoring her patient. Although Hajune seemed to want us there, he never spoke, only sat on the bed holding his wife's hand. Silence filled the room, but it wasn't complete. A faint hum came from the walls, a vibration of the life within the hospital, the sound carried by the trees that cradled this building within their great bases.
Hajune suddenly spoke. "Skyhold?"
I raised my head, stirred out of my doze.
"Skyhold?"
His voice was urgent.
"Hai!" The doctor jumped up from her console and strode to the bed.
I froze. No. Not now. Skyhold couldn't be dead already.
"Sweet gods," Hajune whispered. The doctor was leaning over Skyhold now.
Then, in a husky voice almost too soft to hear, a woman said, "Hajune Tailor? Why cry you, Husband?"
He made a choked sound.
The doctor spoke kindly. "Rest you must, Skyhold. Sleep."
"Rest I will…" Skyhold murmured.
Hajune spoke softly to the doctor. "What happened?"
Her voice caught. "Apparently she is stronger than we knew."
Tears wet his cheeks. "Thank you." He glanced at me. "And you."
"It is you who brought her back," I said.
He bowed his head, then turned to his wife. His joy filled the chamber.
Yet pain still existed here. It didn't come from Hajune.
Then I knew; it ached within me. I had many memories now: Eldrin laughing, Eldrin in my arms, Eldrin swinging a young Taquinil into the air, Eldrin beaming with pride at his son.
Eldrin.
* * *
The Web Chamber resembled others I had used, except this one was round, as were most rooms in this city. Such geometries fit better within the trees. The white walls glowed with subdued lighting. The room contained a few small consoles. Only one had a telop chair, and it was a pale copy of the Triad Command Chair I usually used to access the psiberweb. Triad Chairs thundered with power: this one whispered. But a whisper would be all we needed, if the right people heard.
The Web Keeper insisted on installing me in the chair. I had designed its prototype a century before her birth, but I let her help me out of my clothes and into the telop skin anyway. The bodysuit had small holes at the wrists and ankles, neck, and base of the spine. Prongs from the chair snapped easily through those holes into sockets in my body, and biothreads linked the sockets to my neural nodes. The chair's exoskeleton folded around my body, sheathing me in a silver mesh.
This chair was a stranger, with unfamiliar smells and textures. Closing my eyes, I went through a series of relaxation exercises. Then I let signals from the console "shake hands" with the biomech in my body. When my neural nodes and the console had become acquainted, my mind diffused outward, reaching for the web—
And found nothing.
I felt as if I had dropped into a cold void. The gateway created by the console should have boosted my thoughts into psiberspace. But this gate went nowhere. The Kyle space it had linked to no longer existed.
I turned my concentration inward. With the support of the chair, I had better focus and control. I entered a netherworld, unformed and dark…
The universe existed as a green blur.
Gradually, the blur resolved into a low ceiling. I was lying on my back, covered by a sheet. Moss made a pleasant cushion under my body.
Some time later I turned my head. This chamber resembled the main living area of J'chabi's home. Someone was sitting on a ridge across the room, reading a holobook.
"My greetings, J'chabi." My voice came out rusty. I sat up slowly. I still wore the telop skin, so I let the sheet fall.
