The Evolutionary Void (36 page)

“Who did he get the new herbs from?” Edeard asked sharply.

She nodded agreement. “I’m looking into it. This can’t be done quickly.”

Standing in the Apricot Cottage’s lounge, facing the nest, Edeard finally
knew that legal details such as who bought what from whom were of no
consequence whatsoever. The nest was very different from Buate; they weren’t
going to be blocked by any tax investigation.

“It’s not a term we favor,” Tathal said in amusement. “But it does seem
to have caught hold.”

A multitude of fast thoughts flashed through the air around Edeard. The
nest members were all communicating with one another; it was like the swift
birdsong of a complex gifting, except Edeard couldn’t comprehend any of it.
Real unease began to stir in his mind.

“I’m surprised,” he said, keeping the tone level, affable. “Nobody wants
to say much about any of you.”

“We discourage attention,” one of the women said. She was sitting to
Tathal’s left, covered in a shawl of thick, deep purple wool. It didn’t
disguise her pregnancy.

The constant flow of mental twittering shifted for a moment, purifying.
“Samilee,” Edeard said abruptly, as if he’d known her for years, even though
she was only twenty-three. Her current favorite food was scrambled Qotox eggs
with béarnaise sauce and a toasted muffin. The cravings were quite pronounced
with only five weeks to go until her due date. Her son’s father was either
Uphal or Johans.

Edeard shivered in reaction to the knowledge.

“Welcome, Waterwalker,” she replied formally.

Thoughts swirled again, as if the lacework shadows were in motion around
the lounge.

“Can you blame us?” That was Halan, twenty-eight years old and so
delighted to have found a home in the city after a decade and a half of
unbearable loneliness in Hapturn province. His exemplary financial aptitude
placed him in charge of the nest’s principal businesses.

“Look what the establishment tried to do to you when you showed them your
ability,” Johans said. Twenty-nine and a very conscientious follower of city
fashion, he designed many of his own clothes and those of the nest’s male
members. Three of the most renowned outfitters in Lillylight district belonged
to him, their original families eased out in that way in which the nest
specialized.

“A whole regiment deployed with the sole intent of killing you in cold
blood,” Uphal remarked. Their chief persuader, the one who whispered strongly
to the weak, the inferior who swarmed the city like vermin.

“History,” Edeard told them. “A history I evolved so that we could all
live together no matter our talents and abilities.”

“That
they
can live together.” Kiary and Manel
sneered in unison. The young lovers who had such a fun, wild time in the
tunnels and elsewhere in the city: the Mayor’s oval sanctum, the altar of the
Lady’s church, Edeard and Kristabel’s big bed on the tenth floor of …

Tathal snapped his fingers in irritation as Edeard turned to glower at
them.

“Enough,” he chided. Tathal, the first to realize his dawning power, the
gatherer of lost frightened kindred, the nurturer, the teacher, the nest
father. Father to seventeen of their impressive second generation.

“Oh, Ladycrapit,” Edeard muttered under his breath. He hadn’t been this
scared for a long long time. Decades. And even then he’d had youthful certainty
on his side.

“So you see, Waterwalker,” Tathal said, “like you, we are Querencia’s
future.”

“I don’t see that at all.”

“You said that you thought stronger psychics were emerging as a sign of
human maturity in the Void,” Halan said.

“What?”

“I talked to Kanseen once,” Hala said with a dreamy smile. “She has such
fond thoughts of you, a little thread of longing never extinguished. I believe
that’s why she recalls your time in the Jeavons squad together so clearly even
after all this time. Back then, after your triumphant day of banishment, you
told her that was your reason for enlisting Marcol as a constable: to tame him,
to bind him to your vision. You saw the strong emerging from the masses; that’s
very prophetic. We respect that.”

“And you’ve been keeping an eye out for others of strength ever since,”
Uphal said. “Bringing them into the establishment. The establishment whose
throne you’ve claimed. Indoctrinating them with your ideals.”

“But that was then,” Tathal said. “When the strong were few, and afraid.
Now our numbers are growing. Soon there will be enough of us that we can emerge
from the shadows without fear. One day, all humans will be as us. As you.”

“Really?”

“You doubt your own beliefs? Or do you dare not put a voice to them? You
know we are right. For we are here, are we not?”

“What exactly do you see yourselves becoming?” Edeard asked.

The nest’s thoughts swirled around him again, faster than ever. This time
he knew their amusement: tinged with derision, perhaps even a scent of
disappointment. The great Waterwalker: not so impressive, after all.

“We are the children of today’s people,” Tathal said. “And as with all
children, one day we will inherit the world from our parents.”

“Okay.” Edeard cleared his throat. “But I don’t think you’re the type to
wait patiently.”

“We are simply readying ourselves for every eventuality,” Tathal said. “I
do not delude myself that the transition will be smooth and peaceful, for it is
never a pleasant realization that your evolution has ended and a new order is
replacing you.”

“Unbelievable.” Edeard shook his head wearily. “A revolution. You’re
going to replace the Grand Council with your own followers. Is that the best
you can do?”

“We have no intention of replacing the Grand Council. Can you not
understand what we are? We don’t need to make the kind of empty political
promises Rah made to the masses, his ludicrous democracy. He knew the right of
it when he established the families of the district masters. That was where he
expected our true strength to emerge. The Grand Families tried; for centuries
they have chosen their bloodstock on the basis of psychic strength. But we have
supplanted them as the true heirs of Rah. Evolution is inevitable, yet it is
also random. Isn’t that utterly wonderful?”

“So the weak don’t get a say in the world you control.”

“They can join with us,” Uphal said. “If their thoughts are bright
enough, they will belong. That’s what we are: a union of pure thought, faster
and more resolute than any debating chamber full of the greedy and corrupt that
rules every town and city. It is democracy on a level beyond the reach of the
weak. Your children will be a part of it, especially the twins. Marilee and
Analee are already open and honest with each other; that is a big part of what
we are, what we offer. It’s a wondrous life: nobody alone, nobody frightened.
And there are more of us out there, more than you know, Waterwalker.”

Edeard gave him a thin smile. “I suggest you don’t threaten my family. I
suggest that quite strongly.”

“I’m not threatening anyone.”

“Really? I’ve seen how you use dominance to bind people, to deny them
free will. That’s how you’ve come this far. Control seems to be what you’re
actually about.”

Tathal grinned. “How is your campaign for Mayor coming along? Dinlay is
putting an election team together for you, isn’t he? Always the loyal one, Dinlay.
His admiration for you verges on worship. Do you discourage that?”

“If I become Mayor, it will because the people who live in this city say
I can. And when that mandate is over, I will step down.”

“Your nobility is part of your appeal. To their kind.”

“You talk as if you’re different. You’re not.”

“But we are, and you know it. And to make your guilt burn even brighter,
you belong with us.”

“Dominance is psychic assault. It is illegal as well as immoral. I want
you to stop using it against other people. You can start with Colfal.”

Kiary and Manel laughed derisively. “
This
is
why we’re cautious? Come on. He’s an old man we can squash like ge-chimp crap.”

Tathal waved them into silence. “Don’t do that,” he said to Edeard.
“Don’t fall back on righteous indignation; it does not become you. You were the
first. You have a duty to your own kind. You are the bridge between us and the
others. If you want to retain your self-respect, your grandeur, you will work
with us. Continue as that bridge. People trust you; they will need your
reassurance that what is happening here is inevitable. You are essential for
the transition, Waterwalker. You cannot stop us; we are nature. Destiny. Help
us. Or do you consider yourself above that?”

Edeard held up a warning finger, grimly aware of how pathetic that must
appear to the nest. “Stop interfering with other people’s lives; leave their
minds alone. You are not their superiors. We are all—”

“One nation?” Tathal inquired; the mockery was palpable.

Edeard turned and left the room. He was somewhat surprised he was still
alive and allowed to do so.

Mirnatha was in the ziggurat when a shaken Edeard arrived home. He’d
completely forgotten she was visiting. She was up on the tenth floor, along
with Olbal, her husband, and their children. Kristabel was on the floor of the
private lounge, entertaining the two toddlers while the older ones were playing
with Marakas and Rolar’s children in the big playroom on the other side of the
ziggurat. The children’s excited laughter and squealing echoed down the vast
stairwell, causing him to smile regretfully as he climbed the last few stairs.
He passed the short corridor leading to his bedroom and gave the closed door a
pensive look. Kiary and Manel creeping in unseen to have their dirty little
thrill was far too much like the time Mirnatha had been kidnapped.
Too many memories
, he told himself.

By the time he reached the main lounge, he’d managed to compose himself
and strengthen his mental shield. He smiled widely as Mirnatha rushed across to
kiss him effusively, and then he shook hands warmly with Olbal. Everyone had
been surprised when Mirnatha had married him. She’d spent her teens and
twenties enjoying every delight and excitement the city could offer a supremely
eligible Grand Family daughter. Then suddenly Olbal had come to town, and the
next thing Julan, Kristabel, and Edeard knew was her engagement being announced
and a wedding six weeks later in Caldratown, the capital of Joxla province.
Kristabel had worried it would never last; Edeard had a little more confidence.
He rather liked his brother-in-law, who owned a huge farming and woodland
estate in Joxla province, to the north of the Donsori Mountains. Olbal didn’t
care much for the city and its politics and its society events; he was a
practical man whose brain was occupied with agricultural management and food
market prices. Such a man offered the kind of stability Mirnatha needed. And
here they were, still together thirty years down the line, with nine children.

“So what’s new?” Mirnatha asked as she settled back into a sofa and
reclaimed her teacup from a ge-chimp.

Edeard hesitated.
You really don’t want to know that
.
“Not much. Still being bullied.”

Mirnatha clapped her hands delightedly. “Excellent. Well done, sis. Keep
them on a short leash, I say.”

Edeard and Olbal exchanged a martyred look.

“We’ve said nothing, but he’s finally going to run for Mayor,” Kristabel
said.

“Really?” Olbal asked, intrigued.

“It’s all down to timing,” Edeard explained.

“Will you change anything?”

Not me. But my word doesn’t count for much now
.
He looked at Alfal and Fanlol, the two toddlers, and smiled grimly. “I think
things are pretty good as they are now. I’ll try and keep them that way.” His
third hand poked playfully at Alfal as the boy banged an old wooden cart
against a chair leg. Alfal turned around, a mischievous smile on his sweet
little face, and pushed back with his third hand. The force was surprisingly
strong, in fact, very strong indeed for a three-year-old.

“He’s a tough one, my little man,” Mirnatha said adoringly. “But then,
they all are. That’s what growing up in the fresh air does to you. You two
should spend more time outside the city.”

“I’d love to,” Edeard said. “I always wanted to take a long voyage across
the sea to find some new continents.”

“Like Captain Allard, hey?” Olbal asked. “Now that would be quite
something. I might even join you.”

“Over my dead body,” Mirnatha said.

“Families would be voyaging with us,” Edeard told her reasonably. “After
all, it would take years.”

“What? Including the children?”

He shrugged. “Why not?”

“There aren’t any ships that big,” Kristabel said.

“So we build them.”

“A fleet,” Olbal said. “I like that idea.”

Kristabel and Mirnatha looked at each other. “Man dreams,” Mirnatha
exclaimed. “It’ll never happen.”