This Gulf of Time and Stars (33 page)

C
ALM
AND DIGNIFIED
, our Tikitik, given a view of the sky; Morgan had been right, as he often was. Now he gave me a warning look I understood completely.

How could this being know of us?

Fair was fair. We knew something of it, too. “Thought Traveler,” I greeted, bowing my head; Aryl a grim silence in the background. “My name is Sira Morgan. This is my Chosen, Jason Morgan.”

“Names I do not know. Intriguing.” Cilia clustered, then spread. Its voice came from somewhere within them. “Your heritage is plain,” it announced suddenly. “Descendant of Sarc and Mendolar, Parth and Serona.” An eye considered Morgan. “Human—yes. We do not forget your taste.”

I translated that ominous phrasing for Morgan. He looked more intrigued than worried. “Sorry for the rough ride.” The comlink spouted something more like “regrets-bad-too-fast-walk” but the Tikitik grasped his meaning without difficulty.

“It was a pleasure.” A guttural bark—a laugh. “You travel as the Vyna. I've been interested to experience the sensation, but not so foolish as to wish for it. You realize the Vyna use this ‘badtoofastwalk' not only to visit other Clans without invitation but to—shall I be delicate?—remove unwanted visitors from their own.”

Aryl supplied a rather bloodthirsty
satisfaction.

Morgan gestured to the benches. “Shall we sit?”

Tikitik, it turned out, didn't sit, preferring to squat so its “face” was reasonably level with mine once I took my seat. Morgan, as I might have expected, retrieved his coat and stood behind me.

The coat being full of weaponry, the point he made wasn't for our unwilling visitor but me. “Don't provoke the alien” had been a regular part of our pre-trade session briefings; this time, any mistake would cost us this potentially valuable source of information.

Unless it lied.

It won't lie.
Grudging advice.
But it won't give away the truth for nothing.

Understood.
I settled myself, unperturbed by eyeballs that moved. Though this wasn't Huido. This, I decided, was more like a Scat. A predator.

Showing it weakness would be a mistake. “Yes, we're back,” I said bluntly. “With questions. There've been changes on Cersi while we were away.”

Cilia groped in my direction—
tasting
according to Morgan. “In you as well, Far Traveler. Your age—quite remarkable.”

As a starting point, it seemed harmless. “How so?”

“Our Om'ray burn faster.”

And wasn't.
Aryl?

Marcus said we had rapid reproduction. Sixteen-year intervals. He was surprised.

So was I, though this would explain the multitude of generations recorded in the parches the M'hiray had brought with them. I'd assumed a longer—much longer—period of time had passed, our generations being closer to Human standard. I'd been wrong.

“We've learned not to rush life,” I said evasively. To Morgan,
Is such a difference even possible?

“Life is the point.” A finger, thin and supple as well as clawed, aimed precisely at what I bore.

It knows.

A large eye rotated to stare at Morgan. “Not yours.” Then back at me. “Yours. Like the—”

“Vyna. Yes, I've heard.” I leaned forward, wincing as my hair
pulled itself back in a rude knot of aversion. “You're right. We aren't like the Om'ray who stayed on Cersi.” Time to press. “We've technology to tell us this—” I held out the pendant “—is a device to send information. A transmitter.”

The head reared back and up. “Speaker pendants are not devices,” with scorn. “They are what
sing
to the Maker's Gift. Here.” With a painful-looking motion, it tilted its head to expose the softer, gray skin of its upper throat and touched a clawtip to the tissue between its jaws. The head dropped to its normal position, eyes locked. “Any Tikitik has but to
listen
in order to
hear
the pendants being worn, no matter where in the world, just as we once
heard
the tokens of unChosen.”

‘Maker'?
The Cloisters' machine? It couldn't be the same, yet—was it coincidence? I translated for Morgan.
Aryl?

It has nothing to do with Om'ray,
she replied testily.
The Tikitik call many things ‘Maker,'
including the smaller of Cersi's moons.

If we accept the Tikitik have such a sense and the pendants were made to take advantage of it, the transmitter must be for another audience.
“Oud listen, too?” Morgan asked out loud.

“The Oud are blind and deaf and thoroughly ignorant.” The Tikitik rose to his full height, his head awkwardly high so I had to lean back—not that I could read its expressions, but eye contact was a habit. “Why would they listen? They consider themselves to no longer need Speakers.” His head lowered, all eyes on me. “They consider themselves beyond any limits. The last time we tasted
Human
was the last time Oud accepted their part in the Balance. Is this why you've returned, Far Traveler? To see for yourselves the great hurt you did this world?”

No!
An image appeared behind my eyes, a mug smashing on a floor, the liquid within spreading like blood.

I didn't need to ask what it meant.

After such dire news, any questions we had for Thought Traveler were no longer ours alone. I invited Sona's Council and the Tikitik Speaker to join us.

“Invited” involved disrupting the meeting already underway, a breach of custom, law, or whatever established for all I knew before the mountains rose to the west.

Making them too old to matter, in my opinion.

Fortunately, the shock of being 'ported silenced the Sona before they could be outraged by my breaching another: the presence of Tikitik in their Cloisters.

The presence of Thought Traveler, meanwhile, quelled the Tikitik Speaker into a humble posture, squatting while the other stood. Comparing the two, I saw the differences in their clothing. The fabric around Thought Traveler's wrists and across its chest was finer than that of the Speaker, the symbols more carefully applied. I judged the former older as well, if thicker knobs on the skin and more faded scars measured age in their species and not just personal history.

Even without those clues, Thought Traveler carried himself like someone above the rest of his kind.

Apart,
Aryl corrected.
They observe and carry information between factions. The ones I knew had a dangerous curiosity and didn't hesitate to stir trouble to see what would happen.

The Tikitiks' eyes watched the Sona, who sat, exchanging bewildered looks, on the benches.

“Thank you for coming,” I said, seizing the initiative before Odon, who'd begun to rouse, could open his mouth. The Sona left in the jungle would know where their Council had reappeared; they'd be coming in a fury, I thought, especially Destin. “When the M'hiray left Cersi, the world was in Balance.” Use the Tikitik's terms. “What happened afterward?”

Nyala di Edut answered for the rest. “The past isn't real,” she snapped. “Why would you ask?”

I paused, dumbfounded yet again. How could the past not be real?

Because those who die can no longer be felt,
Aryl explained.
Ask about Clans instead.

Which these Om'ray assumed we could
feel
for ourselves. I sent a question to Morgan, received his answer.
Give to get.

I hid a grimace. “You suspected we were different,” I told them
carefully. “We are. The child, Andi, possesses what we consider an old, very rare Talent, the one all Om'ray appear to have kept: the ability to sense where others are.”

“As you do not. I thought so!” Eand exclaimed triumphantly.

“I do not,” I admitted. “Of the M'hiray, only Andi does. If I
reach
through the M'hir, yes, I can find other Om'ray, but it is not the same as your gift.” I gestured at the Tikitik. “Times change. What came before does matter. Let me show you the world as we remember it, so you can tell me how it is now. How it has changed.”

Doubt was the least of the emotions leaking into the room, but Odon gave a slow nod.

I
shared
with the Sona Aryl's memory, her final “view” of her world as defined by Om'ray minds, speaking aloud and pointing as I did so for Morgan's benefit and our “guests.”

Seven Clans plus Sona, the reborn.
From Sona, I pointed south to Grona, nestled at the foot of the mountains and last to see the sun each day. North, to Vyna, deeper in the mountains, smallest in number. North and east to Rayna, one of the larger Clans.

I pointed east: Yena, Aryl's birth Clan, came before Amna, the most populous. South of Amna, bordered by the same ocean, Pana, the next largest. They first saw the sun.

Last, but not least, Tuana, south of Yena.

The grimmer naming. Before Om'ray returned to Sona, Oud claimed Tuana, Pana, and Grona; the Tikitik: Yena, Amna, and Rayna. Oud, having taken Sona from the Tikitik in the distant past, intended to keep it. To restore the Balance, they prepared Tuana for the Tikitik, killing most of its population—Om'ray and Oud—in the process.

But the Oud of Sona were destroyed by the pirates who'd tortured Marcus Bowman, and the Om'ray of Sona became the M'hiray, and abandoned it.

“Sona lives again,” I finished out loud. “And is Tikitik,” I nodded to the creatures. “Thought Traveler accused the Oud of no longer caring for the Balance, of no longer having Speakers. Is this true?”

The Tikitik's head bobbed up in annoyance; it didn't interrupt.

Odon rose to his feet. “The Oud,” said as if spat, “claim Cersi.”
He echoed my gestures, finger stabbing the air. “Amna and Rayna are theirs. The Tikitik cling to what's left of Tuana and Sona, for however long they can keep them.”

No reaction this time from Thought Traveler.

“There is no Yena Clan. No Pana or Grona. If there ever was,” he finished, and sat.

Aryl's presence vanished from my mind; I let her be. “Is this true?” I repeated, but to the Tikitik.

“Regrettably, yes. The Oud did not reshape Yena, Grona, and Pana,” he replied, eyes fixed on me. “They obliterated them, burying their Cloisters as well.”

Gasps.
Horror.

Numb, I asked Morgan's question. “Why?”

“The Oud remain inscrutable. Perhaps they thought to smother those inside. Perhaps they expressed frustration. Oud have been unable to penetrate these structures.” With a certain grim satisfaction, Tikitik having managed just that.

“What does it matter? Without a Cloisters, no Clan could survive,” Teris said fearfully, her fellow Councilors nodding, faces ashen. “Will they do this to us? Is that what the Oud intend for Sona?”

The Tikitik Speaker's eyes moved frantically, as though looking for Oud under the benches. Thought Traveler bobbed its head again. “First they would have to drain the Lay Swamp. I suggest you save your panic until its water begins to disappear.”

The poor Sona looked ready to run down to the platform and start measuring the water level.

Pre-Stratification, Cersi's three species had abided by the Agreement: that none should change the Balance between them. My implanted memories, as well as what Aryl had shared, suggested this Balance was more about the Oud and Tikitik dividing the Om'ray Clans—and land—evenly, with any change being “balanced” by another. They'd traded Clans, back and forth, at terrible cost to the Om'ray.

However dreadful that sounded, what I was hearing was worse. “If the Tikitik still value the Agreement,” I said slowly, “why haven't you stopped them?”

Thought Traveler's eyes rested on me. “You misjudge the situation, Far Traveler. There is no Agreement left to value. As for stopping the Oud?” That guttural laugh had nothing of humor in it. “These,” a three-fingered hand indicated the Council, “descend from stock we plucked from Amna as we ran for our lives. That any Om'ray still exist there astonishes me.” Another laugh. “Perhaps the ocean contains more water than the Oud can remove.”

I translated for Morgan.

“Descend from stock.”
A grim pause.
You're sure that's the meaning?

Yes. They think of these people—of us—
for I saw less and less difference between Om'ray and M'hiray with each moment together—
as animals to be raised.
I didn't doubt the Tikitik had picked those Amna to be saved based not on compassion but something else entirely.
Where have I brought us?

With the aching depth of
despair
I'd show no one else.

You've given us options. But we need more. We need—
with
conviction
—
to hear the Oud's side.