This Gulf of Time and Stars (25 page)

C
OUNTING
STEPS
, Gayle came to a halt. “This'll do.”

The Assembler kept edging back. “Further is better. Much better.”

“Fine,” she said mildly. “If you want me to go through first—”

Louli stopped where she was. “We go together. Partners!”

What “partner” meant to a being composed of spare bits, Gayle didn't bother to ask or guess. The creature would be out of her life soon. “We won't have long,” she warned, growing cheerful. “The blast will draw attention. Grab what you can carry.”

She crouched, the Assembler mimicking her position, and snugged the glove on her right hand. A press of thumb to palm would set off the explosives.

The glove had other interesting attributes, one in particular Gayle looked forward to showing her “partner” once they were safely away.

With Hoveny treasure. The words sang in the blood. If she was wrong, or even if she wasn't, there remained the extra pleasing chance the blast would kill some or all of the Clan—after all, they could well be on the other side of the rock.

With her treasure. With enough? Hells, forget escaping to the Fringe. She'd let Louli into her head. Best plan was to free herself of obligation to Manouya by paying for his assassination.

On second thought, why pay someone else to kill him?

Better yet, complete her mission, get paid, then kill him. In good time. She smiled. “Bowman next.” Her thumb began to move.

Something cold pressed under her ear.

“Why not first?”

Gayle spun out from under, reaching for—

A heavy boot pinned her arm as a scarred hand twisted the needler free. “You're done, Ambridge Gayle,” a calm voice told her. “Stay together, you.” This directed at Louli.

Who crouched meekly to retrieve the arm and hand already on the ground. The reason for her obedience? A second needler with a tip set for wide dispersal, held in a too-easy grip.

Or was it something in those very cold, very sharp eyes watching them both?

“I've an offer, one time, for either of you,” Sector Chief Lydis Bowman announced almost gently. “Give up the Facilitator and walk out of here. Or don't.”

“Liar, liar.” Louli snapped her arm in place and waved it recklessly. “You're an Enforcer. You don't murder beings.”

“That's what you do,” Bowman said, her tone making it abundantly clear how much she regretted having an “offer” to make. “I'm not an Enforcer today,” she finished.

No, she was a Port Jelly, her uniform so faded and worn the elbows were about to split, with a noteplas and stylo, of all things, sticking from a tattered pocket. Passed over for promotion, that uniform said, loud and clear. Bitter and waiting to retire with a nothing pension.

A smuggler would know this Jelly would take a credit to look the other way.

And be wrong.

The disguise might have slipped Bowman past other eyes; not hers. “How did you get by me?” Gayle demanded.

“I'm good at opening things.” Bowman's boot applied more pressure. “Especially when I'm aggravated. I don't like being used. You were, too, of course. Cartnell told you I could find the Clan's planet, didn't he?”

The amusement in her voice made Gayle want to find the Board Member and take him to pieces. Slowly.

“Time's up.” The boot eased a fraction, though not nearly enough to allow movement. “I want the Facilitator. Ident, location. Who deals?” A tiny smile. “Who dies?”

Louli began spewing words like vomit. Gayle didn't bother to listen. Let the rest of the Trade Pact deal with Assembler ambition.

If Bowman had no worthwhile secrets, time was up indeed.

She moved her thumb the rest of the way.

BOOM!

...I
came back to myself. Eyes closed, I savored the comfort of another heart beating in perfect harmony with mine. No, make that two, one smaller.

Disconcerted, I opened my eyes. Morgan rubbed noses, then kissed me soundly. “You did it,” he assured me when we broke for air.

Exactly what, I wondered, had I done? Escaped the M'hir, yes. With Morgan, even better.

Then I saw his face, and the lines etched above the yellowing bruise, and how his eyes simply waited.

For me to remember the rest.

I closed mine again, briefly, soaking in his
love
and strength, then gave a tiny nod. When we stepped apart, my fingers twined through his, my hair around his arm, for we weren't alone.

An audience again filled the ledges of the Buried Theater, an audience once more of M'hiray.

Most stood. Most, like Morgan and I, held to one another: Chosen to Chosen. Parents to children. The few who stood alone must, being Choosers and dangerous to the unChosen—

Who clung to whomever they could.

Deni's lips moved. Counting. For myself, I couldn't bear to have a number. It wouldn't be enough. I'd been too slow, our enemy too quick, we'd—

Sira. Show them to me.

Aryl, calmer than I, as she'd been in the M'hir; stronger, in the purity of her
will.
Was it her age, for she was far from young, or the almost-death she'd endured for so long? Regardless, I was grateful. I
shared
what I saw with her, gazing up.

Only to fix my eyes in horror at a commotion near the top row. A Clansman slid to the floor, bounced down a ledge before anyone could reach him, landed lifeless.

I'd missed his Chosen. I'd missed—

It's every grief you've known,
Aryl told me, with such understanding I shuddered.
Every grief you know will come. Some will always fall. You saved the rest.

—missed . . . unbearable, that
grief
. To avoid more, I dropped my eyes to the stage.

There they were.

Mirim. Orry, her oldest friend. They'd left the bodies here, arranged side-by-side. They'd been friends since my birth—

A birth leading to this. I bent under the guilt, wondered numbly why I didn't break.

Jarad and Mies had disagreed with their Chosen, had sought safety elsewhere.

Had died first.

Who would be next—who?

Sira . . .
Fingers tightened around mine. Not in protest; a support as tangible as Aryl's.

It was hard to breathe . . . why was it hard to breathe? I'd learned to think as a spacer. “We're running out of air!”

“No, Sira,” Morgan said gently. “The walls are cracked. There's a good flow.”

Cracked walls. All of us within cracked walls—

“It's held up this long,” my Human soothed, ever-pragmatic. “But we—they—can't stay here.”

Another small and hopeless cry. Another Lost. I stared up as the rest drew closer together, still silent, still trusting.

Me. A mistake, bringing them here, all in one place.

It had been that, or lose them. I forced aside my emotions, burying them deep. Mistakes, I reminded myself, could be fixed.
These lives, I would save. “We won't,” I assured Morgan, my voice firm again. “What are our options?”

He'd waited for me to ask, I could tell, having trusted me not to wallow in what couldn't be changed. He rhymed off possibilities: out in the open, where there should be the rule of law and not wicked things. I found myself only half listening.

Hearing
Aryl instead.

We are the same, you and I. You Joined with a Human to find a future for our kind. I let myself be put into that stone because when I thought of that future, I
tasted
such change coming as might destroy worlds. I believed the M'hiray would be its cause. Believed I dared not let our kind return whence we'd come, or all of us would be lost. My Chosen, my Enris, believed in me and let me go.

For naught.
With terrible
remorse.

Now I see the truth. That the change I foretold was this—that we would fall without the chance to fight back, that we would end, without knowing our beginning.

Sira, my heart-kin. I would save the M'hiray if I could—

“Jason,” I whispered, tears slipping down my cheeks. “Aryl's going to help—”

—but I can't guide us home. I don't remember it. I'm of no use.

She'd saved us twice already. I shouldn't have expected more; I'd only hoped for it, like all those looking down at us.

You've helped—are helping. We'll do this together
, I told her. Aloud, to Morgan, “Too many are already exhausted.” He wouldn't like this; I didn't either, but the other choices were out of reach. “They can manage Deneb.” Where we'd have to hope the syndicates had been cleared out by the Enforcers. I went on stubbornly, “There's a passage from this world through the M'hir.” A passage forged, in part, by my father's fostering.

“Sira—”

BOOM!

T
HE
EXPLOSION RINGING IN HIS EARS
, Morgan checked Sira with a quick touch before jumping to his feet to scan the theater for its source. There. He'd marked the caved-in entrance with Barac as a weak point. It hadn't reopened, not quite. Another round would do it, given how much rock had shifted.

Dust dimmed the portlights, already hardly sufficient for so large a space; the last of the debris, pebbles, and sand rained down with light pings and clatters. Hearing nothing else, Morgan looked up.

None of the Clan had moved. None of them spoke or had cried out. Coated in dust, in their silent ranks they were like the carvings around the ceiling.

Inscrutable.

Inhuman.

The awareness crawled under his skin, prickling; sweat beaded his forehead, running down his chest and back.

A child coughed. A father bent to soothe her.

People, Morgan admonished himself, the spell broken. He wiped his face, smearing dust, then shoved his fingers through his hair and gave it a sharp tug. People who were telepaths, born to it like a Human to speaking aloud. Not hearing them react didn't mean they hadn't.

If he dared open his mind to them, he'd
hear
—but he didn't. Couldn't, was the truth. If it made him a coward, so be it, but he'd felt enough pain through Sira to last a lifetime, and that didn't begin to count his own. Any more and he'd be of no use to her or them.

One of Sira's mother's group approached: Holl di Licor, a Clan Healer as well as scientist. When she hesitated, giving him a troubled look, Morgan gestured to her to continue. Had she felt him? He tightened his shields.

“Captain, do you have medical supplies in your pack? We've some with cuts that need treatment.”

Sira, who'd joined them, sent,
I've asked her to save her strength for what's to come.

When things were worse, that meant. Humbling, the courage of his Chosen; Morgan took comfort from it as they all did. “I've a kit,” he told the Healer, shrugging the bag from his shoulders. Like old times, that weight on his back, this coat. Not that they'd been good times, but what he carried had saved his life before now. “Here you are.”

“Thank you.” She gestured gratitude to him, then turned to gesture again, deep and profound, to Sira. “My family and I never thought to reach the Origin, Speaker. We never dreamed to fulfill our destiny. You've done that for us.”

Morgan understood the faint desperation to Sira's “I'm glad for you.” The last thing she'd want was to be thanked for the present situation.

When Holl left to join the others moving among the newcomers, he put a hand under his Chosen's elbow and leaned close. “Anywhere but Deneb, chit. Trust me.”

“I do.” Soft warm strands followed the line of his jaw, toyed for an instant with the beginnings of bristle. Sira pulled her hair back with a muttered, “I'm trying to think,” that wasn't for him, so he carefully didn't smile.

She chewed on a full lip, her gray eyes clouded. “It's the strongest passage from here.”

Which mattered to how they traveled. He understood that, even as he marshaled arguments against it. Syndicates had ruled Deneb
since settlement; the world's wealth merely a crust of civility over one of the most corrupt governments Humans could claim. He'd never trusted the
Fox
there. To take the Clan's refugees—?

“Surely it's not the only passage.”

Her nose wrinkled at him; the sign of impending disagreement. All at once her face changed. “No. No, it wouldn't be. Not from here.” She looked around as if seeing where they were for the first time. “We're at the Origin. Jason. We're at the Origin!”

“And now that's a good thing?” he ventured, mystified but willing.

“If I'm right, it is, but—” Sira searched his face. “I haven't asked you,” she said, her voice inexpressibly tender. “Not once. About any of this. About—trying to leave the Trade Pact.”

“Because you know better,” Morgan replied airily, hands cupping her cheeks. “If you're talking about a new world to explore, chit, as I recall you owe me one.”

At last, there it was. The smile that never failed to send his heart and spirit into orbit. He bent to kiss the tip of her nose, refusing doubt.
Together, always.

Hair billowed around them as her lips found his.
Always.

I
GATHERED MY PEOPLE
on the stage. We'd gleaned everything useful from the leavings of our ancestors: bags, a few blades, an ax, bits of leather still intact; adding those to what little we had. The husks of our dead we sent into the M'hir to be with their Chosen. Now, it was our turn.

Morgan joined me, having left a note beneath a fragment of stone. I didn't ask who it was for or what he'd written. We were, if I was right, leaving. A farewell was only fitting.

As was this.

“The Origin,” I told them, “isn't a place.” I let my awareness expand into the M'hir, not moving, simply touching.

Here.

When 'porting, wounded and at the edge of my own existence and limit of Power, I'd glimpsed a distant brilliance, a path once so wide and great its passing burned an echo in the M'hir itself.

Here
, Aryl agreed.

Before me, before us, was its end. A true passage—no, I corrected, the Passage—etched by the migration of the M'hiray from their world to this one. End? Beginning.

I
showed
the others, waited patiently, sensed them find it, feel it; learn how it extended
away
from here—and only here—reaching out and beyond.

What do we do?
they asked then, wary. Weary. Afraid.

We follow.

Like children learning to 'port, we would have to trust those who'd gone before and left us their road. Let ourselves go . . .

And believe in a destination.

A home.

Home.
More than a word.
HOME!
A desire, a need, feeding from one to them all, echoed within me and without.

Now, I thought. Across this gulf of time and stars, to whatever awaited.

I took my Chosen's hand, looked deep into extraordinary blue eyes that trusted, that loved, that dared all things—

and
leaped
 . . .