This Gulf of Time and Stars (16 page)

My mother lived here.

Having expected a hovel, given the neighborhood, I was surprised to find a well-appointed apartment waiting behind the door. The furnishings were worn, but gently. I recognized a chair and rug, a piece of pottery and a lamp, and looked a question.

“I brought them from home.”

Like her furniture, Mirim di Teerac appeared worn, but gently. Her hair was confined in the pre-Stratification net she'd used as long as I could remember, hair now more gray than gold. Fine lines rode her eyes and mouth, but she bore herself with quiet strength. A long table along a wall was covered with fabric and what I'd taken for a piece of art nearby turned out to be a torso with more fabric pinned to it.

Memory surfaced. My mother sitting, an embroidery hoop in her ever-busy hands. Singing to me as I played by her feet.

Mirim noticed my attention. “I do repairs and alterations. You'd be surprised how many from the shipcity need them. It's a good living.”

Defensive.

A Clan—a “di Sarc”—working for Humans? It certainly explained my father's conspicuous absence. “I'll have to get your
rates,” I said, demonstrating how my sleeves, if unrolled, covered my hands. The ubiquitous spacer coveralls outlasted their original wearers many times over; I'd only seen new ones on crew from company ships.

She frowned. “You've changed.”

How would you know? I might have asked, but didn't bother. The past was behind us. “Everything has.” I looked around. “When did you move here?”

“The day you dragged me through that cursed dark.”

To attend the treaty signing.

She waited for me to acknowledge how terribly wrong I'd been. As I prepared to do just that, I studied her face, finding Pella in her forehead, Rael in that expressive mouth and high cheekbones.

Then, in my mother's gaze, I found what we shared. A fierce and relentless will.

This was not, as my father believed, a Clanswoman who'd conveniently accepted her lack of Power and influence. Not, as I'd believed, one who'd withdrawn from a loveless family. Had I met Mirim sud Teerac while trading, I'd have put thumb to contract, as the saying went, with eyes open and an exit in sight.

I sat in the nearest chair rather quickly. The other thing about becoming a trader? Knowing when to gamble. I selected my next words with care and tossed the dice. “I've come for your advice, Mother.”

Affront, plain and stark. “The First Chosen of the di Sarcs, come to me. The Clan Council's Speaker, come to me.” Oh, no forgiveness there. She'd started civil, surprised to see me or curious. No more. “Why?”

I matched her bluntness. “We must survive.”

An eyebrow lifted. “Why?”

I leaned forward, hands on the arms of the chair, and let the edge of my vaster Power brush hers. “Because I say so.”

The Clan measured worth in Power, dominance by strength. Any Clan would have backed down.

Any Clan but my mother. “You?” Her lips twisted as though to spit. “I warned them about you. That change would begin with
your birth, change to everything, and they'd regret wanting this Power of yours.”

As hurts went, this was less than others and hardly a surprise. What was? That my mother
tasted
change. I'd not known she had that rare and disturbing Talent.

I put an edge into my voice. “You want the Clan to go extinct,” I accused. “I think you're pleased Pella and Rael have died, that their Chosen have died, that the families on Acranam have—”

Her unClan-like slap stopped me.

Rubbing my cheek, I almost smiled. Trader trickery had its place. I had her. Understood her as I mightn't. Morgan would be proud.

“How dare you—”

“Mother.” I stood to gesture profound apology and respect, saw her toss her head back in startlement. Before she could speak, I did, hearing my voice ring with the truth. “You've tried to save the Clan all along, but no one listened. This—” I glanced around her apartment “—is how we should have lived among Humans from the start. As part of their lives.”

“We should never have taken from them,” she snapped. “Never ruined their minds and used them. We could have renounced the M'hir and Power; been happy as we were. Greed took us down a path with only one ending. You—were inevitable.”

Her one Talent of strength. It hadn't only warned at my birth. “You fled after the treaty because you
tasted
change coming. Why didn't you speak?”

“Who'd have listened?” Mirim turned away as if wearied by our conversation, walking to the tiny kitchen. “It's not as if I could point to any one danger. That's not how the gift works.”

How many times had Morgan had such instinctive warnings, their true source clear only after the event?

“What about now?”

Mirim paused by the counter, then gave me a sober look. “It's not over. Not yet.”

More change, I thought, my heart sinking. More chaos and disruption and death. I'd scolded Barac for losing hope; I came close to losing my own in that instant.

I clung to why I'd come—to find safe haven for those who remained.

It wasn't here. Nothing about the portcity, Norval, or my mother's apartment would be proof against the Assemblers or even a Human with an ax and a grudge. I was slightly astonished my father hadn't 'ported her away with him to save his own skin.

If not here, then where?

>. . . here . . . here . . . here . . .<

Instead of being startled, I froze. Was I hearing a voice, or was something deep inside insisting I listen to myself, to a hope I hadn't let myself believe?

Here. This place. Every Clan knew our history began on this world, Stonerim III.

Mirim had fled here for a reason. If I believed anything, it was that. She and her group, the M'hir Denouncers, were united in their intention to return to the pre-Stratification life of our ancestors. For all I knew, they'd started a colony elsewhere on this planet.

A dream not remotely big enough. Not to save the two hundred and seventy Clan left. Not to give them a future.

Not to keep the Trade Pact from weakening or worse.

We needed a world of our own.

“Mother,” I asked, telling myself I was a fool, telling myself myth couldn't save us, “do you know where we came from?”

“Now you ask. Now you believe.” Mirim leaned on the counter, her back to me, and I sensed
defeat.
“When it's too late.”

“It's not. I don't accept that.” I went to her. About to touch her hunched shoulder, I thought better of it and dropped my hand to my side. “I won't. Please, believe in me. We have to act.”

Her hand reached back to capture mine, gripped, and all thoughts of the Clan Homeworld, of anything else, disappeared as Mirim
shared . . .

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Years of dreadful patience. Years of wasted time and effort and disappointment. Waiting . . .

For me?

Waiting.
For me to—?

I jerked free, shaken. “You wanted me to keep taking Candidates
for my Choice. To carve a bloody swath through an entire generation if necessary! Why?”

“To save us! To be the first!”

We stared at one another. I didn't know what to say, what to do. All this time—“I did what I could,” I said finally, desperate. “I found what was happening, that we were doomed—”

“Your work was meaningless. The M'hiray would not have gone extinct.” Her eyes flashed with impatient anger. “We cannot.” Suddenly, the passion left her face, leaving it old and tired. “What does it matter? Others have ended us. It's too late.”

The
life
within me. A child outside a pairing. Commencement without Choice, reproduction without sex. Parthenogenesis.

The Turrned did it.

Not by Perversion. Nature. The past, the present, everything I'd believed shifted along that axis, disorienting—

—then, as abruptly, clear.

Jacqui'd been right to send me to my mother; she just hadn't known why. I'd never have believed this, any of it, if it hadn't already happened to me.

“It's not too late,” I told my mother. “I am the first.”

You agreed to this?

Oh, I knew that tone. It went with the look of incredulous dismay I'd see on Morgan's face whenever I'd had a “better idea” concerning the ship. The results weren't always disasters, but having been raised by technophobes, I, according to my captain, lacked several fundamental understandings. Admittedly, there'd been times I may have overestimated what I could learn from vistapes and going ahead on my own had, occasionally, caused a flood.

There'd been that almost-fire.

I'd ruined a—the point being, I knew full well Morgan was more concerned about possible consequences than angry.

They want to meet me.
It wasn't as if I had a choice. Mirim had reacted with shock, then frenzied motion. She'd contacted her
group. I hadn't expected she'd use an antique handcom to send coded messages.

Nor that we'd walk to our destination, within the towers of refuse.

It'll be fine.
I infused the words with confidence.

I'll be there tomorrow.
His presence faded.

Sooner than planned, that was, meaning Morgan would push the
Fox,
betting she wouldn't fail. He'd stay by those laboring engines, tools ready, until—

“Watch that puddle,” warned Mirim. “It's corrosive.”

I dodged in time, the green glow along the edges of the irregular pool promising nothing good. There were many such, oozing from the piles on either side of what was more path than road. “Thanks. I was distracted.”

“By Jason Morgan.” She said his name as I'd heard others do, the first time. Wistful, faintly unsure. As if he wasn't real and couldn't be, but how they wished he was.

For I'd shared everything with them, that day. My mistakes, my failures.

My love for a Human.

I glanced at my mother. “Yes.”

“What you have—” Mirim fell silent, keeping her eyes on our path. Abruptly, almost angry, “It was like that for the M'hiray, before coming here. We formed loving pairs. A Chooser's Power-of-Choice was how we completed them, not a fight to the death.”

Was it wistful thinking? Her Joining with Jarad had been imposed by the Council of the day and worse than loveless. They'd produced offspring to order, given them up when told, and hated each other as much as any two could.

I'd like to believe the Clan had been different once. “We're not taught that—”

“Why would we be?” Our path met a bridge, a flimsy thing of broken pieces. We crossed with care, the gutter beneath flowing with more of the noxious effluent of the piles.

Once we were both across, Mirim went on, not looking at me. “We're not to know anything was better then. We're to believe how we live now is the best choice, the only choice.”

Choice. She used the word deliberately. “You could have taught me,” I said, stung. “I'd have listened.”

“Sira Morgan listens. Sira di Sarc?”

That silenced me. Perhaps her intention, perhaps not. The path narrowed and I followed behind, trying to keep from flinching as those around us turned to stare.

For we were no longer alone. Small groups—mixed by species, by age and health—foraged in the piles, filling bags and sacks. Having seen us, they returned to their work without a sound. A Trade Pact of the forgotten and homeless.

And desperate. A jointed arm reached from a cavity, seizing Mirim by the wrist. A body draped in garbage—or clothed in rags—heaved toward us, a wide head shaking free.

My blaster caught beneath the coat she'd given me. Before I could free it, my mother twisted loose. “Shame on you, Putzputz,” she scolded. “You know who I am.”

“Femmine. Femman. Fem.” With a wheeze, it collapsed back into itself; its bulbous eyes remained fixed on me, their gaze hard and suspicious. “Who's he? Why's he? What's he?”

“With me. Are the rest here?”

“Some. Most. All.”

Mirim nodded as if its babble made perfect sense, then tossed it the bag she'd carried over her shoulder. “Make that last, Putzputz. I don't know when I'll be back after this.”

A moan. “Try. Might. Doubt.” The bag disappeared within a cluster of eager arms. Membranes slipped over the eyes, turning them milky white, then the alien burrowed backward into its hiding place and disappeared.

“This way.” To my disbelief, Mirim's finger pointed where it had gone.

No, worse. Above it. At the pile surrounding a dark-walled building.

I looked up, and up. The mess extended to the roof at one end. Small things with teeth looked back down, then scurried deeper within the loose structure.

“You're joking,” I protested.

“Stay here, then.” Without waiting to see if I obeyed, my
mother began to scale the pile as quickly as if she were one of the small things with teeth.