Ties of Power (Trade Pact Universe) (15 page)

Sira had sent him after her enemies. And now she was gone, breaking her promise to him before she could conceivably have healed enough to move safely on her own. He couldn’t search for her without lowering his defenses against the Clan, including the slender being waiting for him to speak.

It was too late to pretend he’d known she’d leave. Barac, more experienced with Humans than most of his kind, had seen enough of his reaction. “Where did she go? Did she leave any word?” Morgan asked numbly.

Barac’s eyes lowered, as if the Clansman saw something in the Human’s face he couldn’t bear to watch. “No.” Silent for a moment, Barac walked over to a side panel, opening it to reveal a small bottle flanked by two glasses. It was Sira’s favorite—a gift of Brillian Brandy from a mutual friend. “We could both use this,” the Clansman said apologetically, pouring a generous amount of the rare liquor into each glass. “Here. And do you mind sitting before you fall down?” He squinted at Morgan. “How long since you’ve slept?”

Morgan ignored the question and accepted the drink; following Barac’s example, he sank into one of the chairs Sira kept near her shelves. He stared up at them, wordlessly, only now noticing they were bare. She’d taken the time to pack her collection of bits and pieces, but he knew what should be there: shells and sand from her first walk on a beach, the first gambling chits she’d won at the Haven’s tables—on her way to winning the business from the previous unlamented owner of the place—a series of vistapes on hold stowage that rightly should have stayed on the Fox but he hadn’t the heart to insist, and other things. Nothing valuable, except as markers to a life expanded beyond all expectations, a life and individuality she’d earned.

A life he would give his own to protect. “It was the Clan,” Morgan said slowly, taking a sip of brandy, feeling its soothing burn trickling into the depths of his throat.

“The Council?” Barac shot back.

Morgan shrugged, wincing as the movement jarred his bruised shoulder. “I don’t have a name—yet. Or proof. But I don’t doubt it. Unless you know of anyone else interested in harvesting the reproductive organs of your cousin?”

The blood drained out of Barac’s face, leaving red blotches on each high cheekbone. His voice was a whisper. “What—what did you say?”

The Human reached out and lightly traced two straight lines against the issa-silk of Barac’s evening jacket. “Unless you’ve something else there I don’t know about,” he said grimly. “They’d sealed the wounds with medplas—nice of them—then dumped her in the wilds where I don’t think anyone else could have found her in time. So I’d say we’re dealing with at least one individual who was squeamish about blood in the aircar, or compulsively tidy about their surgery.”

“Baltir.”

The last thing he’d expected was a name. Morgan felt the room spinning and focused hard on the Clansman’s pale features. “Who?” he demanded hoarsely. “Who did you say?”

“It’s a guess—but I’d bet on it. Sira didn’t—no matter, I’ll show him to you.” Barac raised his hand as if to place it on Morgan’s forehead, then hesitated. “If you wish.”

“If you dare,” the Human said softly, owing Barac the warning. He couldn’t be sure of his own control anymore, or what might trigger the bottomless rage he carried.

He also knew—and Barac’s sudden swallow as their eyes met and locked confirmed the Clansman’s understanding—that he was after more than what Sira had asked. Recover what was stolen?

After he’d dealt with the thief.

Morgan watched the green flashing light on the com panel, debating whether to accept the link. It should be Pocular’s Port Authority, giving him clearance to lift and the schedule for the docking tug to carry the Fox to the launch area, safely distant from the other ships on the ground and their valuable cargoes.

His index finger hovered in the air above the control.

If it was Port Authority, Morgan knew accepting the connection and the notification sure to follow would mean he’d be irrevocably (unless he could find the credits for a very significant fine) committed to leaving this world.

“We were happy here,” he mused out loud, comfortable with the habit of talking to his ship. Most of his adult life had been spent alone, like this, with the Fox herself as company. It was a preference both of his personality and for real protection from the unwanted thoughts of others. Until Sira’s teachings, he’d been reluctant to test his ability to screen out the mental noise of those around him, to risk exposing his own telepathic skills. Now, that was the least of his concerns.

Morgan touched his fingertip to the top of the button, feeling its coolness in contrast to the burning rage buried inside him. He guessed what it was—at least some of it: Sira’s parting gift. He doubted she’d meant to pass along so much of her anger; there was no question she’d honestly tried to protect him these past months. But he’d been aware of it, as he’d known most of her emotional turmoil. The link between them went both ways—he’d just made certain she wasn’t aware of how deeply.

He regretted nothing, yet hesitated to push the button.

The rage was something that, identified, seemed controllable enough. He’d left Barac intact, Morgan recalled, despite temptation. But it colored his every thought of her, spilled darkness on the love she’d offered to him at last, pouring like poison over everything he felt in return until all that remained free of confusion was their common purpose.

“She wants me to recover what was stolen. To seek them wherever they hide,” he reminded the ship. Didn’t you know that would have been enough, Sira? he added as if she were still close in his thoughts, listening to what was more than speech. Didn’t you realize I would do it for my own sake—that what harms you, harms me? You didn’t have to say: ‘As you love me.’

Morgan pressed the button, accepting his destiny, his other hand reaching for the yellow trip tape to insert at Port Authority’s request. That it had nothing to do with his true destination was a detail the Human deemed Pocular’s Port Jellies could talk to him about later.

If he ever came back.

Chapter 13

ONE advantage to having been a working spacer was that I knew the moment the Makmora dropped from translight and began docking maneuvers. The cessation of the almost soundless engine vibration, coupled with some abrupt shifts in gravity, left me in little doubt we were about to clamp on to something. But what?

This being a curiosity I couldn’t satisfy from the warmth of my bed, I pulled on my coveralls as quickly as possible. Time to head to the bridge and ask some determined questions.

The door handle wouldn’t budge.

Despite a sudden flare of anger, I had to smile. Did the Drapsk seriously think this could hold me in place? The locate of the bridge was easy to form; my Talent felt nearly normal again. I pushed . . .

. . . and felt as though I’d hit a wall. A prickly wall, at that.

This was not good.

As if to underscore my growing apprehension, the ship connected with something else with a clang and thud. Their pilot lacked Morgan’s finesse.

I calmed myself, using the discipline learned by Sira di Sarc over decades of honing her power to counter the newer and overly vivid imagination of Sira Morgan. I was constantly blending what I’d been with what I’d become; as constantly, I worried about recognizing the end result.

How were the Drapsk keeping me imprisoned? There was no opposition to the tendril of thought I cautiously allowed out past my shielding, no detectable change in what I could sense of the M’hir.

Not drugs, then, I decided with an immediate rush of relief. There was at least one, of my personal experience, capable of temporarily blinding my kind to the M’hir, of trapping our thoughts within flesh. So what else could it be?

For no particular reason, I remembered Sector Chief Lydis Bowman, the Trade Pact Enforcer whose intervention had likely saved both Morgan and me from the plans of the Clan Council and my father, Jarad di Sarc. I could almost picture her round, stern face, wrinkled around the eyes and corners of the lips as though equally ready to grin or scowl on an instant’s notice. She and her Constables had taken the risk of having experimental mind-deadening devices implanted directly at the base of their brains in order to protect themselves from possible Clan influence.

Now, as I looked around the very small space that was my prison, its walls soft pink and inclined to bulges more than corners, I found myself wondering for the first time if the Humans had invented that particular technology or purchased it—and if the latter, from whom.

I settled myself back on the bed. The Drapsk might be impervious to my other sense, but a seeking within the range of this ship might net me a mind I could touch.

Or more than one. Whew! The Makmora was no longer alone in space and no longer populated only by the Drapsk. I rubbed my forehead, blinking furiously, trying unsuccessfully to ease the painful impact of several hundred minds on mine. There was a cosmopolitan flavor to the confusion outside, making me quite certain that several different species were nearby, specifically on another ship limpeted to this one by prearrange ment, not in attack.

Which was both good and bad—considering the clearest images I’d received suggested the Makmora was clamped lovingly to a very large, very well-populated pirate.

 

“The mechanism must have been stuck, O Mystic One,” groveled the Drapsk who opened my door a short time later. His antennae were almost twisted about each other in what I charitably took to be sincere distress. “We should have provided you with a com system to use. I will see to it personally—”

Before the Drapsk could leave me on its worthy mission, a move sure to mean letting go of the door currently held open in its right hand, I lunged forward and took hold of the handle myself. “Thank you,” was all I bothered to say on my way out.

 

“O Mystic One. My apologies about your door,” Captain Maka began. “It—”

“Must have stuck,” I finished for him. “While I’ll be grateful for the com system your crew mentioned, I’d really prefer not to have this occur again, Captain.”

There was a concerted round of tentacle sucking at this, a general response from the bridge crew who continued to take a great deal of interest in my conversations with their Captain.

“Of course, O Mystic One,” Maka said in that very reasonable voice of his, antennae slightly dipped my way as if seeking more information about my frame of mind.

This time I saw where the bridge seating came from as three stoollike objects budded up from the floor upon coaxing by a Drapsk crewman, offering perches overlooking the rest of the bridge to myself, Maka, and his first officer. I’d missed it before, being too busy trying not to faint. Fainting was not part of my expectations of this visit to the Makmora’s bridge. Answers definitely were.

I seated myself, placing my hands on my knees and then interlacing my fingers into as magical-looking an arrangement as I could comfortably maintain, having no reason to assume the Drapsk would miss such a detail. Which one? Ah, there was a shift change occurring at the com post. I focused on the Drapsk waiting to take his post, pointed my entwined fingers at him in what I hoped was a suitably magical gesture, and pushed . . .

The crewman vanished with satisfying promptness, providing the first piece of information I needed. It was something about my room, then, that inhibited my use of the M’hir. My Talent was potent enough here.

And every Drapsk on the bridge appeared to know it, too. Every plume was aimed in my direction, a focusing of attention I suddenly had absolutely no doubt was a reaction to my use of the M’hir, as I grew equally convinced the Drapsk were the source of the mind-deadening technologies used by the Enforcers. Yet the small beings had no presence in the M’hir, something I quickly tested again. What were they? Did they know about the M’hir or was this some type of instinct? Serious questions, I realized, unsure if I wanted the answers or the complications they implied.

“Had Makoori displeased you, O Mystic One?” Maka asked in a faint voice, antennae vibrating furiously.

Since said Makoori immediately reappeared, almost falling out of the nearest lift as its doors opened, the question seemed moot, but I wasn’t about to lose any momentum with the credulous Drapsk. “You’ve all displeased me, Captain Maka. I came on this ship in good faith—only to be imprisoned while you dock with strangers. I feel my good name endangered,” I asserted, warming up to the tirade. “I feel my very existence endangered! How can I perform at the Ceremony on Drapskii in this state?”

They could have been slightly bizarre lawn ornaments for all the movement occurring through the next long moments. Perhaps the tips of various antennae fluttered. I relaxed, letting the Drapsk do whatever they needed to do in order to converse privately, hopefully having made my point.

“It was not our intention to alarm you, O Mystic One,” Captain Maka spoke finally, one four-fingered hand warm on mine. It was the first voluntary touch I’d experienced from a Drapsk, the ministrations of the med aside, and I immediately tried Morgan’s method to see if I could read the being’s thoughts. Nothing.