This Gulf of Time and Stars (20 page)

F
INSDOWN
AND IN ONE PIECE
. Morgan ran his hand along the corridor wall on his way to the galley. “New parts,” he promised the
Fox
. “Newer, anyway.” He'd worry about affording them when he'd time.

First things first. Real food, a turn at the fresher—he'd learned not to meet aliens smelling overly Human—and a change of clothing. He stepped into the galley, taking a loud and appreciative sniff. “That's not the ship's cooking.”

Ruti smiled. “Some is,” she admitted, waving a spoon at the galley's servo panel, admittedly limited in its food fabrication. A budget was a budget. “I added a few touches.”

“My thanks for that,” Morgan said fervently. Taking the plate she offered, he joined Jacqui and Barac at the table. “We're tucked in,” to the Clansman's questioning look. “I expect Sira back sooner than later. Sooner,” he complimented, “if she knew about this.” He held up a forkful of omelet before tucking it into his mouth. When had he last eaten something not squeezed from a tube?

“Meaning Mirim's group can't help us.” Barac pushed his plate away. “Now what?”

Ruti slid into her seat. “We eat,” she told him, pushing his plate back.

“I would—” Jacqui began, then blushed. She gestured apology. “Forgive me. I'm—not quite myself. There's an unChosen here. I think. I haven't been this close to one for a long time.”

Ruti chewed and swallowed. “Can you control it?”

Green eyes flashed. “I have before.”

The urge to offer Choice, that meant. It wasn't Jacqui's fault; as a Chooser, her instinct was to find an unChosen and test him with her Power.

It wouldn't be her fault if she killed him, either. Morgan ate steadily, aware Barac was unsettled, aware they could have a problem. “How can we help?” he asked after a moment.

“It could be a good Joining.” A lock of Ruti's hair strayed toward her Chosen. “They happen.”

“There are too few of us left.” Jacqui regarded her right hand, the hand of Choice. She drew her graceful fingers into a tight fist, lowering it below the table and out of sight. “Don't let me waste him. I would accept stasis.”

When a Chooser's mind was put into an unreactive state. It hadn't held for Sira—

“Morgan has the Talent,” Barac announced. “You do,” when the Human merely stared at him. “You've healed minds. I should know.”

Healing wasn't what they discussed. “I haven't the knowledge.” Morgan looked straight at Jacqui, who'd gone pale. “Even if I did, we couldn't risk it. Not now. Not with what's happening. You'll have to control yourself.”

She nodded, he thought relieved. “I understand. I will,” firmly.

“You can't be the only Chooser feeling this way,” Ruti said with her practical kindness. She put her hand on Jacqui's. “The baby and I will distract you. And—” a grimace, “—our training.”

They're doing well,
Barac sent with an undertone of
grim.

Their would-be attacker being still unknown. One threat at a time, Morgan reminded himself, taking another bite of what was an excellent meal. Sweet. Sour. Salt.

No, he thought, going very still. That
taste.
The Human looked at Barac, saw awareness dawn in his eyes, for this Talent? They shared.

Change.

Barac surged to his feet. Ruti rose with him, taking his arm.

“What is it?” Jacqui demanded. “What's wrong?”

The warnings were never clear, never directed.

One this intense? Never to be ignored.

It hadn't come during landing, nor while the
Fox
had lurched in the hold of the docking tug to her destination within the shipcity. Not even when he'd shut down her engines, wondering if they'd ever start again. Even with repairs.

Thoughts like lightning as he sent an urgent,
Sira?

Instant
reassurance.
She felt in no danger; her concern was for him.

His stomach sank. Because it was here, whatever it was.

Answering that instinct, Morgan looked to the Clan. “I want you to leave the ship, now.”

“Our things—”

Barac and Ruti had only what clothes he and Sira could spare. Jacqui, on the other hand— “Safe here,” he lied, in case she delayed.

Jacqui nodded.

“I'll take any suggestions,” Barac said quietly. “Nowhere I've been on this planet will be safe.”

Morgan put his palm against the Clansman's forehead.
Here.

Barac blinked at him. “A closet?”

“With a door. You'll be with Mirim's group. You said they were harmless,” Morgan reminded him. “Sira's there.” In case they weren't.

Sira and the unChosen, no doubt, which couldn't be helped. Jacqui pressed her lips together and didn't object.

“This isn't right.” Ruti was shaking her head. “One of us must stay. To 'port you to safety if there's trouble.”

When, not if.

The Human gave her his best captain-knows-best smile. “I managed before the Clan. Ask your Chosen.” Barac gave a tiny nod in answer to his look. “Go. If you so much as sniff trouble, pop back here. Understood?”

He held that smile until they'd disappeared.

“All right,” Morgan said, his voice echoing in the empty galley and down the corridor. “Let's see what's wrong.”

The control room first. Nothing new on the coms, other than Port Authority blustering for an inspection. With no listed cargo nor posted intent to load, he'd the right to refuse and had. No need to mention the
Fox
wasn't lifting again any time soon.

This time Morgan secured the door behind him, as he had the galley's. No reason, other than the continued
taste
in his mind and a dislike of surprises.

The engine room was in disarray, tools lying in pools of leaked coolant. He closed that door, too, with a sigh. Sira wasn't going to like the mess.

Or what it meant.

They'd been poor before; being so again was furthest from important right now.

The empty storage hold being still at hard vacuum, he left it. The
Fox
was set. Time to go.

Morgan opened the door to his and Sira's cabin.

To find he wasn't alone after all.

A
S
I'D FEARED
, Clan weren't the only living things down that hole. Every world had its city-loving vermin. Stonerim III's version, pox, infested the construction that supported the floor: orange reflections marking eyes before they winked away; the scritchscritch of eager claws, the creatures emerging once the portlights passed. I tried not to think of them calculating how best to leap and catch onto my rope.

At least all I had to do was hold on—not even that, according to Tle, the lifts safely secured to my feet—but I declined to experiment. Bad enough the rope vibrated to any movement by those connected below me. I'd thought one or more of the group would stay up top, but they'd all wanted to come.

Expecting me to provide some amazing insight. Well, not me, exactly.

>Here . . . hereherehere<

Excited was it? I held tighter.

The final drop involved the rope swinging, hands grabbing, and a grateful sigh on my part once I stepped on solid ground.

Rather, solid dust.

If not for the ceiling far above, we might have been outside. At night, since darkness was the most obvious feature, but the sense of space was truly impressive. To my right was—it wasn't a wall but
a great cliff, its surface slanted and ribbed. A support, I realized, craning my head up, able to hold up a city, or what remained of one.

Hopefully for a good while longer.

Immense pipes rose up along the wall ribs, joined to others that plunged through the floor or flopped along it or looped lazily to the distant ceiling. They were everywhere, as if we stood inside a body among the vessels carrying its blood. White. Red. Black. Some oval, some round.

Between the pipes, paths scuffed the dust, leading from where we stood into the dark, so many and confused I might have stood at the center of a web; Mirim and her followers, exploring without guide or guess. I shivered. “Has anyone been lost?”

“We do use these.” Deni smiled as he flipped open a handheld device: a placer, capable of generating a detailed map of anywhere it had been.

More unClan-like tech. I approved.

“Cha broke hers once,” Andi said cheerfully, “I found her.”

“You did?” That would have taken not only considerable Power, but the M'hir, yet the others nodded with pride.

My puzzlement must have shown, for my mother smiled. “Andi is always aware of the physical locations of others relative to herself, without exposing herself to the Great Darkness. A pre-Stratification Talent, extremely rare in M'hiray.”

So rare, I'd never heard of it. What was her range? With such awareness, how had it felt to her when so many winked from existence at once?

Most importantly, could this small child tell me who was left and where they were?

Before I could think of a tactful way to ask, Deni beckoned us to follow. He'd selected a path no more trodden than any of the others.

And no more appealing. Planting my feet, ready to remind them coming down to this level didn't mean I planned to wander it, I found my head turning to look in a different direction, along another of the paths.

>HERE . . . hereherehereherehere<

Bother. “This way,” I told them resignedly, now beyond curious.

This voice wanted something; that, I couldn't doubt.

Did what it want have anything to do with my mother's expectations or mine?

Oh, I had doubts aplenty about that.

>HERE<

I halted. To my relief, the glow of the portlight we'd left at the hole was still visible.

“Why have we stopped, Speaker?” They'd followed without question till now, but this path and a couple parallel to it kept going into the dark—after a bend to avoid yet another giant pipe. Mirim and the others had explored here, at a guess quite thoroughly, and were right to wonder.

>HERE<

“How should I know?” I muttered. Or did I? The
Fox
had compartments that weren't obvious to the casual eye, some with secret mechanisms. Not that we were smugglers but, as Morgan put it, there was fair tax and there was graft and we weren't paying the latter if we could help it.

The floor, I decided. Borrowing Leesems' shovel, I gave the dusty surface a good thump, wincing at the echo. I changed to a quieter tapping.

Catching on, Deni held up a scanner, frowning with concentration. After a moment, he touched my shoulder, aiming the device at a spot on the wall. “I found a control panel, Speaker.”

“Excellent,” I replied as if I'd expected nothing less and returned the shovel.

The other five Clan stood waiting.

Looking at me. With an inward sigh, I ran my hands over the seamless section of whatever ancient metal had been used to make the wall that Deni claimed held a panel; not that I thought it would do any good. It didn't. This was Morgan's specialty, not mine.

“May I try?”

“Be my guest.”

Deni put his hand
through
the wall I'd just touched.

I blinked.

“It senses the intent of a movement,” Holl said with pleased surprise.

The Clansman nodded. “Pre-SW. Impressive tech.”

And ridiculously old. “How can it still be—” We jumped back together as the section of floor I'd tapped parted with a puff of dust, replaced by a lift platform large enough for a groundcar.

>Here . . . HERE!<

I was not, I told it, going anywhere on that.

Before I could argue the point, Andi looked up at the ceiling. “Oh.” She smiled cheerfully as she said what chilled the rest of us. “More visitors!”

My mother looked at Deni. “Check.”

His Chosen had remained above. With a nod, he half-closed his eyes, then opened them with a startled expression. “Cha says they came out of the storeroom. They're looking for the Speaker.”

Everyone turned to me.

As if it was my fault.

“That's the locate you gave him,” Barac insisted, not for the first time.

Making it, yes, my fault the three of them had, in fact, made their entrance into the laboratory in such startling fashion. I touched Ruti's hand, then Jacqui's, sending a warm greeting. Back to my cousin. “Did Morgan say—what is it?”

Holl approached before he could answer, gesturing apology. “Mirim would like me to inform you that—”

“She can't talk to me herself?” I sighed. Of course not. My mother's fury at having more Clan arrive in her hitherto-secret laboratory had been exceeded only by her reaction when I'd reappeared a moment later with them here.

As if 'porting through her “Great Darkness” was contagious.

I supposed it might be. Any of her followers might see the ease
with which we eliminated distance and begin to rethink their beliefs.

Which wasn't, I told myself, at all my fault. “Leave this to me.”

I walked over to where Mirim stood at a distance, surrounded by the rest of her people. There was something to be said for their way of moving from place to place. By the fifth step, I'd let go of both temper and frustration; by the next-to-last, I'd stopped thinking of her and her kind as utter fools. Finally, I stopped in front of her and gestured my own polite apology.

“I meant no disrespect, Mother,” I said, projecting
sincerity
. “I was concerned for my close kin and their Birth Watcher.”

Andi's eyes widened with surprise.

Mirim's were like ice. “Why are they here?”

I told her the simple truth. “They have nowhere else to go.” I raised my hand, indicating the lift in the floor. “And we do.”

“All of us?”

>HERE . . . herehereHERE!!!<

I could
insist
, like the voice in my head. These might be Mirim's followers, but mine was the greater Power. What choice would she have?

Bowing my head to her, I raised it, hair slipping around my arms, for once in agreement. “With your consent.”

She looked taken aback, then perplexed. Hers was a transparent face, unused to secrecy. Like Rael's, I thought, my heart sore. Finally, the tense lines around her mouth and eyes eased. “Kurr's brother,” she said then, looking past me to Barac.

Who'd come, with Ruti and Jacqui, to stand behind me. At the acknowledgment, he bowed with impeccable grace. “Barac di Bowart. My Chosen, Ruti di Bowart.”

The young Chosen bowed shyly at the introduction. “My mother spoke of your friendship with my great-grandmother. Ne sud Parth?”

Mirim's face lightened further. “We fostered together.”

Though echoing their bows, Jacqui hung back. I sensed her
reticence.
Had the collection above overwhelmed her? With her training, the merest glimpse would tell her its significance.

Not that—or not only that, I thought with pity. She'd sense
Asdny—thankfully up in the laboratory—as almost ready for her Choice. Now, here, she'd be aware of Tle, another Chooser and competition she couldn't match. Not in Power, I added to myself. We were more than that.

We had to be. “Jacqui di Mendolar,” I introduced.

“I know who she is.” Mirim scowled and let a sting of
outrage
through her shields. “Jarad lured this one from her family to be his apprentice. Now he'd use her to get close to my grandchild.”

“Jacqui's our Birth Watcher,” Ruti countered. Mine, her tone said, and worthy.

A hand rested on Andi's shoulder. “This is Sira's. Leave how you came and take her with you.” Mirim brought forth the milky crystal. “We know what to do.”

“By bringing who knows what back to life?!” Jacqui pushed by Ruti and Barac to confront my mother, bristling like an outraged Skenkran. “You aren't the only ones who know about Vessels and what's used to fill them. What you're holding is a relic. There's no knowing if it even—”

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, I thought with remarkable mildness under the circumstances. “What do you mean, ‘back to life'?”

>here<

Mirim gave a harsh laugh. “No knowing? You've dusted it enough.”

Which wasn't helping. “It's the crystal I took from the Hall of Ancestors,” I clarified. “It changed when I 'ported it here.” I braced for Jacqui's reaction. She'd been distressed when I'd simply touched the thing and now the treasured scrap had vanished. “It's been—talking.”

Jacqui gasped with elation, her hands out and trembling.
Could it be?
She swept a deep bow to the crystal, gesturing the highest level of respect. “The great Naryn di Su'dlaat, Savior of the M'hiray, LIVES AGAIN!”

I found myself sitting rather abruptly on the dusty floor.