This Gulf of Time and Stars (40 page)

I'd watch over him, just in case.

I'd watch over them all.

>Keeper<

I'd been asleep. I hadn't meant to—

>Keeper<

—and was asleep, something in me realized. I opened what weren't eyes.

Pinpricks of black light. Each the end of a thread. So many I couldn't see a gap or end to them, so close they stirred with what wasn't breath—

>Keeper, welcome<

—no, this wasn't happening. I'd known to disable the Dream Chamber, had put it to sleep. It took Identity—

>Keeper, welcome<

—and the Will of an Adept, my will—

>What is your will, Keeper?<

—to wake up!

>You are awake; the body sleeps. I am Sona. What is your will, Keeper?<

—
if I was dreaming and awake, I wanted answers. I want answers!—

>Ask.<

C
HANGE!
Choking on the
taste,
Morgan fought to wake up. Change!

Had something gone wrong with the sleepteach? Processing that much input could muddle the head, but usually no worse than a night at a bar.

CHANGE!

His eyes shot open. Morgan found himself staring up at a seething mass of tendrils!

He flailed at them with the hand that wasn't pinned under Sira, relieved when they curled up and away as if hairs caught by flame.

“Sira!” They were still on the bed, a bed now descending. It had been—it had been near the ceiling. The Dream Chamber! Not again.

I warned her—
Aryl sounded furious—
nothing good happens here!

Descending? The bed fell. Morgan threw himself over Sira, held on and waited for the impact.

Instead, politely, the bed slowed and stopped, exactly where it had been.

Morgan jumped up to find the rest of the chamber improbably normal, filled with sleepers. If he'd disturbed any, they were pointedly ignoring a Chosen who'd shouted his partner's name.

Turning, he put his hand flat on her forehead.
SIRA. WAKE UP!

S
TARS
CRUSTED THE SKY.
I felt as though I hadn't seen them in years, like old friends I hadn't known how much I missed until seeing them again.

“Unfamiliar. No surprise there.”

I dropped my gaze to Morgan. Or rather, to where he sat. I'd 'ported us here the instant my eyes had opened. He'd waited, a shadow fairly bursting with
impatience,
for me to explain what had just happened.

“I didn't do it on purpose,” I said finally, it being important to get that out of the way. This wasn't a case of my trying the wrong switch or button.

“I wasn't actually worried about that.” As if I should have known.

And did. I relaxed. “It turns out the Keeper is more like a comtech.” Odd, how what I'd learned from Morgan and the
Fox
mattered more here than all my years as Clan. “Falling asleep where I did, with my mind full of questions, activated Sona. The—” I waved my hands. Being dark, that didn't help. “—the ship.”

“That's—” I felt the effort Morgan expended to curb his excitement. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”

“I heard it, like a voice. Like Aryl's from the crystal. I was a little—startled.” I heard him shift; our experience with uninvited
voices hadn't been good. “But it wasn't an attack or threat. It was like—you know, talking to the ship.”

“People don't talk to ships.” Patiently.

“You do. Did.” Move on, I told myself. “The point is, Sona answered questions. The couple I had a chance to ask it.”

Before someone yanked me out of a perfectly comfortable sleep, demanding answers of his own. I'd 'ported us here more to protect those still asleep, if any, than for privacy.

Though privacy was pleasant.

“I'll apologize later,” he said grimly, making that in no way a promise. “Go on.”

“The Maker Oud was right.” I looked up at the stars. “The Om'ray started all this. They sent volunteers, the best and most able; invited the Oud and Tikitik for their skills. They were to work together, Morgan, but something happened. The trial was never to last this long. They were supposed to go home.” To a world out there, one where we'd evolved—

Where we'd belonged, once.

“I asked it why.” I raised my arms, reached as if to touch that world. A tear slid down my cheek, as cold as the space between, tribute for those who'd risked so much only to fail.

Arms went around me, held tight. My hair slipped around his neck, binding us together. His kiss found my tear and he asked, “Why, Sira?”

“Because everything was taken from us,” I told him. “Cersi was our last chance to reclaim what we'd lost.

“We were the Hoveny.”

B
ARAC
SETTLED BACK
against the wall with a yawn. Hadn't sounded like passion, that shout, but when he'd gone to check Sira and Morgan's bed was empty. He'd like to know where they'd 'ported. A little privacy would be nice, sooner than later.

He grimaced, working his tongue around his mouth. Emergency rations. He suspected Humans made them tasteless so they wouldn't be eaten on a whim. Just as well Holl had—

He straightened. Not food, that
taste.
Change. Should be getting used to it by now, he thought grimly. Barac started down the aisle between the beds—

A figure, swathed in white,
appeared
. Another! Two more over—

“Intruders!” Shouting that warning,
sending
at the same time, Barac pulled free his blade as he ran at the nearest.

Others were in motion too, some
disappearing— '
porting from the chamber to escape. Lights came up.

The figures were beside the children's beds! Barac wasn't the only one running now.

Enora got there first, tried to protect Andi. Barac saw her fall—saw Andi's terrified face as a stranger snatched her up and they
disappeared.

“GO!” He slashed through legs, on the backstroke removed a head, stumbled over his mother's body, and kept running.

They're outside! They're outside!

Figures came and went. Barac split another in half. The M'hiray had no weapons, but he saw Pirisi wrap his arms around an invader.

Disappearing
together, where he couldn't follow.

Screams, inside and out.
SIRA!
He'd never imagined an attack like this—never dreamt he'd be fighting for survival against his own kind.

Here!
Sira
appeared
with Morgan.

Too late.

It was over.

Barac sank to his knees in the sudden quiet, sobbing with the rest.

“V
YNA.”
Destin used her boot to roll over the limp body of a Clansman. Other than his hairless head and white clothing, he might have been of Sona. “And those who serve them.” Her eyes were hard as stone. “I told you. They steal children. The unChosen.”

Barac's warning had reached them. I'd sent my own summons, but they'd been coming already, risking the swarm with what glows they could carry.

“We'll get them back,” Morgan promised. “Them” including Sona's one unChosen as well as ours, and our children.

Andi.

We'd lost six forever, a new and terrible grief. Pirisi di Mendolar—dropped in the M'hir, his Chosen, Ru, dying soon after. Kele and Celyn sud Lorimar, cut down in the hall as they'd fled, for some of the intruders had been armed.

Dear and gentle Enora. Agem, ever puzzled by the world.

They call us “lesser Om'ray,”
Aryl sent, her mind voice as
dark
as I'd ever felt.
They won't sully their breeders with our blood. They'll use those they stole, then toss them aside.

We'd another body to examine. A Vyna. Tall for a Clanswoman and obscenely thin. Her shoulders and knees protruded under her clear garment like great knuckles, her skin everywhere
colorless, tracked with the blue of blood vessels. Her hands had four fingers and two thumbs, like Sona's Speaker, but her digits were half again as long; the nails were missing. A tight beaded cap covered her hairless scalp, and her eyebrows were beads of gold.

A disturbing face, even empty of life.

She'd been pregnant, the swell of her abdomen the only roundness to her body. Jacqui had checked, disgusted anyone would so risk their child, but the life within the Vyna had died with her.

The Vyna's frail appearance was a lie, I thought. There'd been but two of them, with their “servants,” but they'd 'ported here with others and sent them away again with their captives, along with what supplies they'd been able to grab. Formidable, that said of them.

Greedy as well as callous, that too.

Unfortunately, they'd hidden those they'd taken well enough I couldn't
grab
them back. We'd an answer for that.

Morgan stood by Barac, busy allotting weapons the Sona provided among those willing to use them, which were all of the M'hiray. The Sona, led by Destin, were determined to come as well, a chance to strike back at their tormentors worth the risk of the M'hir. The chamber boiled with anger.

None of it mine. What I felt I kept to myself; every so often, Morgan would give me a searching look.

Knowing me as he did.

Peace,
I told the mothers waiting nearby.
Wait.
They were desperate to go, the severed links to their children like bleeding wounds. So far, they'd listened, but I was ready to block their 'ports if need be. We couldn't lose them too.

Slipping into the M'hir, I'd found the
burn
of Vyna passages, followed to the blinding nexus where they converged and overlapped: their home. They must have been raiding the other Clans for generations.

Since we taught them how,
Aryl sent.

You say they respect Power.

That was then. Sira, are you certain?

Certain that if we were to live on this world, among its Om'ray, the Vyna couldn't continue to be a threat? Yes.

Certain more death wasn't the answer? Yes.

That I alone could stop it?

We'll see, Great-grandmother.
The nexus wasn't enough for a locate, of course, but I had what was: Aryl di Sarc's vivid memories of the Vyna Council Chamber.

It was time.
Morgan.

Even across the chamber, I could see the blue of his eyes when he turned in answer.

Coming?

M
ORGAN
FOUND HIMSELF
inside another Council Chamber.

With Sira.

And only Sira.

He winced, thinking of those they'd left behind, let alone facing them again—especially Barac. But this was her call and he'd trust it.

Especially with—he stepped forward, staring out the tall arched windows, so like those of Sona's Council Chamber, seeing a clear night sky, filled with stars—

—if stars wheeled in formation, creating the outline of something very large and disturbingly curious. Morgan squinted. Somethings, he decided, tapping a finger on the pane. “What are they?”

The
rumn, Aryl informed him.
It's unfortunate they've been attracted. With them close, we may not be able to 'port.

Given that was how they'd arrived—and would leave—Morgan looked at Sira. “They part of the plan?”

She gazed at what swam past the windows with a thoughtful frown. “I don't know. What are Rugherans doing on Cersi?”

Rugherans? He found his mouth open and closed it. This complicated matters. The species existed, partially, within the M'hir.
They'd encountered them on a couple of occasions, the last he'd thought with success.

There'd been sex. Of a sort. Some type of happy conjunction had taken place, though on a planetary scale. The details were a bit hazy. It was often the case when Drapsk were involved.

Morgan watched the nearest moving constellation, trying to make out tentacles or a head—not that Rugherans had heads. “Sure it's them?”

“Yes. No, but they feel—alike.” Her gray eyes clouded. “I hadn't noticed the M'hir was unsettled here, at least no more than usual. That's where we've found them before.” She chewed her lip. “They aren't talking, not to me.”

The rumn can talk?

They aren't always
here
, or aware of us,
Sira explained.
Let's hope that continues.

Unaware and not here would suit him too. Putting aside the chill such otherworldly beings gave him, Morgan looked around the chamber. The Vyna Cloisters was underwater—completely, from the memories Aryl shared—and accessed by an enclosed staircase. The Clan's living space was carved into a spire of black rock rising from the lake.

A lake of something other than water, the whole was ringed by tall cliffs of more black rock. Morgan guessed they stood within a volcanic crater, itself surrounded by a sere landscape of once-molten stone. A fortress, without Oud or Tikitik.

Or reason. “Why?” he asked suddenly. “What's here worth protecting?”

We are.

As quickly as that, five of the six tall backed chairs on the dais were filled with Chosen, so alike to the corpse in Sona they might have been clones.

All pregnant.
Councilors,
Aryl supplied.

One problem resolved. If the Vyna could 'port near the rumn, so could they. Maybe they'd come to an agreement.

He was, the Human thought, doing rather well not to be terrified at the thought.

The door had swung open at the same time. In floated four
quite different chairs, these each filled with the oldest Clan Morgan had ever seen. They were wrapped in blankets and two unChosen accompanied each.

Adepts.
This with utter
loathing.

Compared to these Vyna, Sira was life incarnate, the red-gold of her hair burnishing the walls and floor, the healthy glow of her face like the sun, the lush curves of her body making those in the chairs look skeletal.

I love you too,
she sent, with a warm sidelong glance, then became all business.
I've found our people, the children. They've been put into a false sleep. It won't take much to wake them. First things first.

She stepped forward, hands by her sides, waiting for the Adepts to settle into place.

Be watchful,
Aryl warned him.
They can't be trusted.

Oh, he was sure of that. Morgan surreptitiously checked various pockets, items he'd promised to use on only one condition.

If Sira failed.