The Saga Begins [Nuworld 1] (38 page)

Every morning, Tara walked down the street to buy one of the newspapers sold in the town. It primarily covered the town’s current events, but Tara found a few political news items, as well.

They’d been in Semore a week. Tara was lonely and thinking of Darius as she walked back to her trailer. The time frame he’d given her to return had expired. She’d spoken to Patha every day, but he had never indicated whether or not he knew about Darius’ threat. Darius hadn’t sent her any more messages, and she wondered if he really would disown her, as he’d put it.

She walked slowly along the street, reading the paper, and looking for possible work. If she were home, there would be plenty of work to do. But here, there wasn’t much call for overseeing military training, or resolving conflicts among clan members.

Briefly, she wondered who had assumed her tasks among the Runners. Darius had learned a lot about them—had he taken on her responsibilities? If so, how would members react to Darius mediating a clan dispute?

Tara stubbed her toe and let out a curse. Thinking of Darius would not help her right now. Maybe Patha had been right. He’d said she wouldn’t be able to fit into this community easily.

As she half-heartedly scanned the paper, a new ad caught her eye. An assistant was needed in one of the government offices to do some landlink work. This was exactly what she’d been looking for. Excited, Tara read the ad closely. She was startled when she walked into something. Looking up, she realized she’d walked right into a man coming toward her.

“I’m so sorry.” The man looked up from a landlink printout, obviously thinking it was he who had not been paying attention. He seemed to contemplate saying something else.

“No, it’s my fault,” she began.

“You just arrived in Semore, didn’t you?” he asked after some hesitation. He glanced around the street as if to see if there was anyone watching. “Follow me.”

Tara followed out of curiosity as he led her through a nearby door and down a poorly lit hallway. He was possibly five to ten winters older than she, very thin, with black straight hair that fell to his shoulders.

He turned toward a closed door at the end of the hall, tapped on it, and then opened the door slowly.

Tara tapped her pocket, reassured by the hard metal of her laser.

The dark man glanced at her and moved through the doorway.

She followed. Tara faced three men. The one she’d followed, along with two others who sat by a desk in what appeared to be an office. One of the seated men was quite heavy; the other had long silver hair pulled back into a ponytail. The silver-haired man looked older than Patha.

They all stared.

She returned their stare, noticing that they seemed nervous.

“We, uh…” The man standing by her began speaking, stopped, and looked at his friends. “That is, um, we know who you are.”

“That’s nice. But I don’t know who you are.” She forced herself to appear unconcerned.

“Fleeders,” the tall man pointed to himself then to his friends. “Snith and Tilk. We, uh, work here.”

The room was well lit with an overhead light and a lamp next to the landlink. There was another desk in the room with a landlink on it as well. The shelves lining the walls were filled with landlink parts and discs. After she’d studied the contents of the room, she turned to stare to Fleeders. “Why’d you bring me here?”

“To talk to you,” Tilk, the old man spoke up, and the other two looked at him with worried glances. “We’ve been monitoring your communications.”

“You’ve been what?”

“It’s our job,” Fleeders said quickly. “We understand that you’re not happy about this. But, we monitor all landlink activity.”

“Gowsky has us do it.” Snith wiped sweat from his upper lip. “It’s not really common knowledge, but we’ve been through bad times.”

“We know you’re Tara, daughter of Patha, leader of the Blood Circle Clan. You joined with the leader of the Gothman, and you defeated the Sea People,” Fleeders said awkwardly. He added quickly, “We know you’re not here to hurt anyone.”

There was a chair next to the empty desk, and Tara sat in it, spreading her long legs out in front of her and crossing her feet. A small smile crossed her face. These men were scared to death—apparently of her!

As they should be. She could kill all three of them in this small office and return to the street without anyone realizing it. For some reason, they’d decided to speak to her. It had been a sacrifice for them, since they were obviously terrified by her presence.

“So why am I here?”

Tilk and Snith looked at Fleeders. So did Tara. He cleared his throat again, something he’d done often in the short time Tara had been in his presence.

“Gowsky found out you were here several days ago. Maybe he’s known longer, I’m not sure. He’s convinced you’re here to start some kind of revolution—take over the Neurian Government. We were asked to monitor your communications and give him a report at the end of the week.”

Tara listened closely as Fleeders spoke. She still wasn’t accustomed to their singsong accents. “So you’ve monitored my communication. And…?”

“We don’t think you’re here to start anything,” Snith said.

“We think you’re here out of curiosity,” Tilk said. “And to get even with your husband.” He added this last sentence quickly and quietly.

“You did make one comment about our oil.” Fleeders looked at his friends, instead of her.

“So you know all about me.” Tara twisted in her chair and looked at the landlink next to her. It was a lot bulkier than the Runner landlink. The three men didn’t say anything as she brought up the screen. It displayed a directory the main landlink offered to every Neurian. Tara had already accessed this on her landlink and was somewhat familiar with its contents.

“You use a similar binary code in your programs.” She turned and looked at the trio. “So what will your report say to Gowsky?”

“That’s just it,” Fleeders lowered his voice just a little. “That is why we brought you here, or I should say, decided to try to get you to come here.”

Tara looked up curiously.

Fleeders continued. “Gowsky stopped by yesterday and told us to infect your landlink so you could no longer communicate with your people.”

Tilk interrupted. “He told us he was going to pick you up and charge you with—”

“Charge me with what?” Tara interrupted as she leaned forward in her chair and slapped her hands on her knees so hard the three men jumped.

“It’s just what we’ve been told,” Tilk said, sounding apologetic. “Charge you with conspiring to start a war.”

“I see.” Tara stood and began pacing while her thoughts raced. “Any defense I come up with will likely be shot down in your government. I could leave right now, but I would have accomplished nothing.” She stopped and stared at the men.

They looked at her glumly.

“Why have you told me all this?”

“Neurians have been devastated by the loss of trade with the Sea People. We could rebuild if we could ship out our oil. We’ve researched you and your Runners since we had access to your landlink system while you were talking with your papa. You’re an advanced race. More advanced than Neurians think you are. We’ll try to explain all this to Gowsky, but I don’t think it will make any difference. He wants you brought to him.” Fleeders shrugged and sincerely looked sorry. “We’re telling you this so you know the Neurian government is watching you.”

“We don’t know what you want to do with this information,” Tilk added. “Now you know what’s going to happen.”

“I know exactly what I’m going to do.” Tara walked to the door.

Chapter Sixteen

Tara froze as she heard loud voices at the end of the hallway. It sounded like several men headed in her direction.

“It’s the police.” Fleeders looked nervously at the door.

“Is there another way out of here?” Tara looked around the room.

A small window was the only other option. Not waiting for an answer, she ran past the three men, jumped onto the desk and lifted the window. She was out of the office and in an alley within seconds. She heard the window shut behind her as she ran down the alley. She slowed to a walk and headed down the sidewalk toward her trailer. No one stopped her on the street, and she wasn’t followed.

“You forgot the paper.” Syra looked up when Tara walked into the trailer and plopped down on the floor next to her children.

They immediately dropped their toys and climbed onto their mama. She hugged and tickled them, but she was distracted. “Sorry. I guess I did.”

“Well, can I go get one?” Syra stood up and stretched. “I sure could stand to get out of here for awhile.”

Tara had been so caught up by her thoughts; she’d barely heard the desperate plea. At once, she focused on Syra. It’s true, the youngster had been cooped up with the babies pretty much since their arrival at Semore, and it wasn’t fair. “Go ahead. Make sure you take a comm. Call me right away if you have any problems.” She looked at the long sundress Syra had on. “Girls here wear pants, though.”

“When it’s cold, they want me in dresses. And when it’s hot, they want me in pants,” Syra mumbled as she walked back to her room to change.

The children napped while Syra explored the town, leaving Tara time to reflect on what Fleeders had told her about Gowsky. Here was a man, a council, paranoid after having been stripped of the commerce upon which they relied. These people hadn’t anticipated that their main income would disappear. Their opium was ample. It didn’t run out. It was their buyers who had deserted them. Now they were frustrated, desperate, and not thinking clearly. On the other hand, the Neurians’ precious oil was important to Runners and Gothman. It made sense they would want to discuss this with her.

Tara decided she must speak with Gowsky, which shouldn’t be difficult since he wanted her brought in. The question was, should she let them capture her? It probably wouldn’t be long before his police showed up at the trailer. Or should she seek him out on her own, maybe tonight after the babies were asleep? Could Gowsky be the man she’d seen her first day here?

She decided to take a walk with the babies. The children squealed in delight as she pushed them in the wagon across the sand and tiny stones behind the trailer. The heat from the sun made the horizon appear wavy in the distance. It was a good sun though—warm and refreshing on her skin.

Tara moved on, slowly trudging across the desert that lay south of the town. She passed several large tree-like plants with leaves the texture of rubber. They were quite beautiful and provided an abundance of shade from the hot sun.

Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Tara squatted down next to her children, talking to them quietly, as she surveyed the area.

“What do you think it was?” Tara smiled at Andru as he squinted his eyes to look with her. Andru smiled and giggled, and Ana kicked at him and also giggled.

“Look, there it is,” Tara whispered to her children and pointed to an animal crossing the field. It looked like a large dog of sorts: dark brown with thick hair and a long tail, walking on all fours. It moved toward them slowly.

Tara knew from experience that most wild animals were not aggressive unless provoked. If she were threatened, her laser would easily kill the animal. She remained squatting next to her children as they pointed with curiosity at the animal.

As the dog moved closer, the heat rising from the ground distorted its features. The waves drifted up, making the creature appear to be walking on only two legs. As the distance between then lessened, Tara realized it
was
walking on only two legs. What she thought had been a dog was now a person. Her eyesight was strong and she questioned what she’d just seen. Had the creature transformed from beast to human?

To be more exact, the creature approaching her was an old woman. She walked hunched over, slowly, a deeply creased leathery face with large dark brown eyes focusing on Tara. Her darkened skin, a shade more orange than the Neurians, was covered with a loose animal skin dress. Her boots were made of the same material, laced up to her knees.

“A blessing to you, child,” the old woman’s voice cracked as if from lack of use.

“Hello.” Tara squinted up at the old woman who now was no more than five feet in front of her.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m taking my children for a walk.”

The old woman came closer and reached out to touch Ana. Tara’s body tightened and the old woman noticed her uneasiness. She pulled her hand away from Ana’s head and instead placed her deformed fingers on Andru’s head. She glanced at Tara with each move to assure her that no harm would be done.

“The children will see and learn a lot. But why are you here?”

Was this old woman crazy? Tara looked at her, and the old woman stared back with dark, glassy eyes.

“Do you mean why am I here with these people?”

The old woman continued her glazed stare and didn’t respond.

“We need a new life. We’ve moved here from the north.” Tara tried to change the subject. “Do you live around here?”

“You aren’t through with your old life. You still have much to do.”

Now it was Tara’s turn to stare. The old woman was out of her head, she decided. Old age and the heat of the desert had done her in.