To Trade the Stars (6 page)

I wasn't sure. The Council preferred any M'hiray Joined to live apart, unless performing their function to produce offspring. The distancing enhanced their Power through the M'hir, an enhancement which perhaps not coincidentally enriched the food source for the living things within the M'hir itself. An uncomfortable, possibly unsafe thought, that somehow our pairings were being distorted by the needs of others.

Togetherness such as ours was brand new, yet ancient. Those who dared, said the Clan had been like this once, with pairings built from more than the instinct for Power. The evolution of our kind into the M'hiray, those who could enter the M'hir, had changed that; selection for Power had ended it.

“You're warning me that while our Joining will last until death, your—love—might not?” This would have sounded better if I hadn't hiccuped over the last word. “That if I change in some way, you no longer care—”

“No, never!” Morgan denied hastily, looking quite reassuringly horrified. “I'm only saying we're both afraid of taking chances, because we'd lose one another. That's natural, Sira, but we can't allow it to influence our decisions about how we live.” He hesitated, then went on in an earnest tone: “We can only live now, Sira. And living includes taking worthwhile chances.”

“You want me to be a cliff dancer,” I said with sudden, rather alarmed, comprehension. I felt him remember the little animals who lived near my former home, the Cloisters, how their mating behavior included a daring and sometimes fatal display along the sheer cliff face. It seemed only those most willing to tempt their fate were able to attract mates.

“Not quite,” he said, smiling slightly. “A cliff dancer with an antigrav harness. And a partner.”

I could manage that, I thought cautiously, drawing a deep breath. Then I gave my Human a stem look: “As long as you remember the first one to fall takes the other as well.”

 

You don't become either coward or cliff dancer in one conversation. As we set course for Drapskii, I considered both. Morgan gave me room for my thoughts, busying himself with records from historical first contact situations, his presence becoming a distant glow of happy preoccupation.

I stayed on the bridge, nominally in charge of the Fox, which gave me a chance to talk to the ship. It didn't matter that I spoke and my respondent blinked a few lights in an order totally unrelated to my meaning. I'd seen Morgan do the same and seem comforted. It was my habit now as well.

As long as he wasn't anywhere nearby to catch me at it.

“You'll only get a minor refit,” I insisted, having already enumerated the list of what had to be done and what could be left until we had a bit more in the holds for credit. The Makii would likely give me anything I asked, but being indebted to the Drapsk had its own price. “If we ask for all the repairs you need,” I warned the
Fox
, “theyll doubtless smile, suck a few tentacles, and suggest I be a Mystic One while the work is underway. You don't know them like I do. It's amazing how many polite and inevitable ways they can find to interfere with a straightforward, common-sense plan.”

A soft beep seemed to answer.

“No, really,” I assured the ship. I lay back on the copilot's couch and let it curl up under my knees. “I love them dearly, but getting anything done around the Makii is like building a tower of feathers on a windy day. You'd better supply glue.”

Beep
.

“Yes, they mean well, but if Copelup even suspected I was heading toward the Rugheran system—”

The ship had never interrupted me before. I glanced at the com panel and realized I'd been so preoccupied I'd missed an incoming signal. Not surprising, since we were translight and such signals were notoriously expensive propositions for the sender—unless the sender was close by. Interesting choice: urgent or we had more company.

I lunged for the board, summoning Morgan as I did so, having learned not to simply
reach
and ‛port him to me when something like this happened. The last time, he'd been using a plasma welder to fasten two critical parts. Needless to say, it was a good thing the Fox had automated fire control in the main holds.

Coming,
he replied.

“This is the
Silver Fox
, Karolus Registry, Sira Morgan speaking,” I told the com, quite pleased by the professionalism in my voice. At the same time, I sent a tendril of Power searching outward, as Morgan was doubtless doing. Nothing. So. Urgent it was. But who?

A blast of static, until I refined the settings. Then a woman's voice came through the speakers, clear, crisp, and familiar: “Bowman. Sorry for the intrusion, Fem Morgan. We need to talk. Would you prefer us to dock or—” the suggestion of a throaty chuckle “—will you ‘pop' over yourselves?”

Much as I admired Sector Chief Lydis Bowman, and valued the work of her Trade Pact Enforcers, I scowled at the panel. So much for my scan of our surroundings. Her ship, the
Conciliator
, could be right beside us but, because she and her people had mind-deadening implants, they would remain invisible to my other sense. It was more than disconcerting—there was something ominous about any technology able to counter my Power.

“I'll check with Captain Morgan,” I said primly. “He should be here any moment. Fox out.”

“Well,” I told the now-silent ship, sighing fatalistically, “if you think the Drapsk can interfere with a straightforward goal—just wait until you see what Bowman can do to one.”

“It's straightforward enough, Rael,” Barac said, waving his curved Drapsk eating utensil in emphasis. “If this is Drapskii ...” he stabbed a hapless vegetable and held it in midair, “... and this is the M'hir ...” his other hand flailed a napkin in the general direction of the vegetable, but about an arm's length apart ”... all we need to do is get them closer together.” The Clansman draped the napkin over the vegetable and beamed across the table. “Simple.”

“Simple,” Copelup echoed enthusiastically, then hurriedly sucked all six tentacles as Rael's fierce glare swung back to him.

Barac had half expected his cousin to simply ‘port away the instant she'd seen he'd lied and a Drapsk was joining them. Instead, Rael had set herself to eating her meal with the grim determination of someone tricked into an unpleasant social gathering.

Mind you, if she'd spoken one word, both Barac and Copelup would have been less prone to play with the vegetables.

“You have the technique from Sira,” Barac went on valiantly. “Surely we can give it a try, Rael—”

The Clanswoman put down her utensil, lining it up precisely with the other six, then spent a long minute shifting her wineglass to more exactly fit the previous impression it had left in the woven layers of flower petals serving as a tablecloth.

Copelup's antennae sank lower. In fact, his entire body seemed to slump. Barac kicked the being's nearest leg under the table. The last thing they needed was for the Skeptic to hide himself in a ball of comatose Drapsk. Copelup responded to the contact with a sharp “yip” of surprise, all his tentacles flaring out in a ring of outrage. “Mystic One!”

“Which is,” Rael spoke slowly, as though begrudging the need to speak at all, “the crux of our problem with your people, Copelup. We are not mystical beings. You persist in seeing us as more than we can possibly be, without paying attention to what we truly are. Barac and I came here to do a job and you turn us into some sort of idols. I, for one, find this—unwelcome.”

The Drapsk leaned slightly forward, as if intent on more than Rael's words. “You are not idols. Our reverence,” he paused, then went on almost reluctantly, “is not for you.”

Barac felt and shared Rael's startlement. Getting real information out of a Drapsk was next to impossible. “If not for us, then for what?” he prompted, tempted to kick Copelup again in case it helped.

Copelup's antennae dipped, then rose. “It is essential that Drapskii be reconnected. It is essential that our Mystic Ones complete their task—”

The same old litany, Barac thought, grinding his teeth. “Yes, yes. We know all that—”

Rael's raised hand stopped Barac's disappointed outburst, then lowered to reach across the table, coming to rest lightly on Copelup's tiny fingers. “If not us, then what?” she echoed Barac's own question, her voice low and intent. “If you want me to stay, speak of more than what we know, Copelup. Please.”

The Drapsk hesitated, sucked a tentacle for a moment, then sighed. “The Makii, all Drapsk, idolize not who you are, but what you might accomplish. You cannot comprehend how important it is to us that this world become part of the Scented Way once more.”

“Then help us understand. Why is it so important?”

They'd asked this question a thousand times, in as many ways as they could, Barac thought glumly. The only difference now was that Rael's Power had a dangerous feel to his deeper sense. She was preparing to leave if Copelup failed her this time—not just this room, but this world.

Perhaps the Drapsk had his own way of gauging their kind. Copelup put his other hand over Rael's. “We haven't been completely open with you, my dear Rael. It grieves me to admit I was among those who felt no alien could be trusted with the truth. I've come to see otherwise. Your sister's influence—” His antennae fluttered eloquently. “I still cannot tell you everything you'd like to know, or need to know, but I will tell you this.”

The Drapsk actually stopped and swung his antennae in a complete circle, as if scanning the room for eavesdroppers. Barac found he was still gripping his utensil with its pinioned vegetable and replaced both in the bowl.

Apparently satisfied, Copelup continued, patting Rael's hand in emphasis with each word, a familiarity she endured with unusual restraint. As desperate for information as he was, Barac decided. “We didn't lose the Scented Way, my friends,” the Drapsk told them solemnly. “We were driven from it—at terrible cost.”

“Driven?” Rael's horrified expression likely mirrored Barac's own. “By what? Those creatures Sira showed us?”

“I thought they only harmed Choosers,” Barac blurted, then subsided as both Rael and Copelup turned to him, the former with a scowl.

“The life you have seen so far is a mere shadow of what dwells within the Scented Way,” Copelup elaborated. “There are countless others who exist only there, as well as many who live there only in part, as do your own species, coming and going as they please. Some of those are—unpleasant.”

“Are you saying you have an enemy trying to stop you reconnecting to the M'hir?” Barac demanded.
No wonder they've been cautious to the point of paranoia
, he sent to Rael.

She didn't reply, beyond a sense of impatient agreement. “You might have told us this at the beginning,” Rael said coldly, reclaiming her hands from the Drapsk.

Copelup sat up straight. “The other aliens we've engaged as Mystic Ones have been more happy in that role,” he protested. “You are the first to be uncomfortable with it—to ask all these question. Why?” He seemed sincerely puzzled.

Rael's hair twitched at is ends. Barac could feel the effort she expended to keep her temper. “Besides the fact that we're the first real ‘Mystic Ones' you've had,” she said icily, “it's probably because we don't trust aliens either.”

The Drapsk hooted with laughter, covering his bud of a mouth with both hands as if this wasn't appropriate at the dinner table. Rael's generous lips began to twitch, then widened into a grin. Barac felt the easing of her tension as a lightening within the M'hir and slumped back in his own chair.

Personally, he didn't see anything amusing in the idea of a war within the M'hir.

“
N
OW, Chief. Why the urgency? A war broken out?”

“Not that I'm aware of,” Bowman said calmly, offering me a tray of tiny pastries, each curled around a different sweet filling. She'd insisted on making our meeting a luncheon and refused to talk business until the meal was concluded, claiming it spoiled her digestion. We'd reached this tray, cups of spiced sombay, and the limit of my patience at the same time.

Not that Morgan and I were displeased to share the Sector Chief's famed table—it was more that the quality of food always seemed related to the unpleasantness of her news, explaining why today's superb meal wasn't sitting particularly well in my stomach.

Bowman put down the tray and patted her lips dry, a signal to her two Constables, Terk and ‘Whix, to clear the table. Business at last. And serious business, given she relied on her most trusted underlings to do the service. Unlikely waiters. Russell Terk was Human, Morgan's height but almost twice as wide through chest and shoulders—older than my Chosen, I thought, but I'd been wrong in such estimates of his variable species before. I couldn't tell if Terk was annoyed to be taking my plate or pleased to obey his commander; his heavy-featured face, below limp pale hair, rarely showed more than a dour watchfulness, as if he expected the worst at any minute.

Terk's partner, P'tr wit ‘Whix, couldn't have been more different. ‘Whix was a Tolian, an attractive, graceful being with faceted emerald eyes to either side of beaked mouthparts. Tall, slim, feathered (which couldn't have been comfortable under his uniform), he had an implant in his throat to allow him to utter the Trade Pact's common language, Comspeak. He was unhappy about something. I couldn't read his features or body posture, but Morgan had sent me the significance of that oh-so-flattened head crest.