by Sharon Lee
Tarona Rusk
Auxiliary Services
* * *
Messages began flowing the moment her ship hit normal space. Tarona Rusk scanned them, but the expected damage reports were not among the incoming. There was one memorandum—one!—forwarded by Commander of Agents herself, indicating that several dramliz had of a sudden fallen ill. The Commander directed her to look into it, but not in any such terms that might indicate . . . alarm, or even very great concern.
Tarona Rusk considered this memorandum closely. No deaths? That could not be accurate. The Lucks and the Brights to whom she had been linked were fragile. No matter the care the Little Healer had taken to be gentle, the separation must have been traumatic in the extreme. Some would have died; it was inevitable.
Frowning, she sorted through the rest of the incoming mail, finding another odd lack.
There was no summary report, nor greeting, from her department sub-chief. She had sent ahead, allowing him to know that she was returning; that she would want him, with full reports in hand, the moment she was arrived. There had been no acknowledgment of that communication, which was not like his efficiency. Unless . . . was it possible that Fel Pin had succumbed to separation trauma? But, no; that she would have marked—no matter what else had occupied her.
She reached to the comm and sent a brief message, that she was on approach, and that she desired he meet her in her office at the twenty-seventh hour.
* * *
She felt his presence through the door; his determination, and his intent—and smiled as she placed her palm against the reader. The instant the light came green, she extended her will and pushed the door back on its track, ignoring the scream of the abused mechanism, and swung through the opening.
Her shields turned the first strike; she parried the second, even as she threw a bolt of her own, shattering his defenses and taking control of his autonomous systems. She squeezed his lungs, just a little, to get his attention; saw his eyes widen, and tasted his fear.
“Fel Pin, well met,” she said pleasantly. “I offer you revenge. Look deeply—am I lying? Am I ensorcelled?”
She allowed him more air, opened her shields—enough; felt the familiar sweep of his scrutiny—once. Twice.
“How?” he gasped.
“I will tell the tale to my ally,” she answered. “If you cannot accommodate yourself, I will, with reluctance, kill you now. I have work that I must see finished and, I fear, a shrinking window. I cannot allow myself to be distracted by the need to continually guard myself against assassination.”
“Give me revenge and I am yours in all things,” he told her, truth ringing so brightly that it nearly deafened her outer ears.
“We are in agreement,” she said, and released her hold on him, stepping farther into her office.
“Sit,” she told him. “Tend to yourself. I will make tea.”
He dropped into the chair he so often occupied, rubbing his chest, a web of healing energies taking shape around him.
“So,” she murmured, moving to the buffet and the teapot, “I have been Healed, Fel Pin, is it not diverting? In the process, my Healer severed my links with—all of the network.”
“The moment reverberated . . . strongly,” he said. “Who was the Healer? Not—yos’Galan?”
“Indeed, yos’Galan,” she said, and smiled at the flicker of his disbelief.
Well, and who would not disbelieve it? Shan yos’Galan—the gentle Korval; soft-hearted and foolish; a mere Healer, and no threat to the Department. The very Department which had taken him at face value, failing to recall that a master trader cannot be a fool, and Korval’s master trader least of all.
“The half-breed fool has placed one—now two—potent weapons into the Department’s very core, which the Scouts, for all their cleverness, have not been able to do. As I said—diverting.”
“Ah,” said Fel Pin flatly.
She considered him on every level available to her. Trust had no place in the Department of the Interior, where control was everything. She had controlled Fel Pin, but they were also dramliz, and therefore she knew him in ways which were simply unavailable to those who lacked their gifts.
“There is news?” she asked him now.
He moved his shoulders.
“Not news. I only recall that Val Con yos’Phelium was a Scout, and that the Scouts did not protest his recruitment.”
The kettle whistled; she poured tea into cups and brought them to her desk.
“You believe that the Scouts placed all their tokens on one square?”
“I think it not impossible, and find it . . . amusing to dwell upon the data, which show us that the Plan had been proceeding with few setbacks . . . until Agent of Change yos’Phelium was placed into the field.”
He took his cup with a small, seated bow.
“I will forward my study set, if you have an interest.”
“Thank you,” she said, and sat down.
They sipped tea, and Fel Pin lowered his cup.
“Returning to your topic,” he said, “I fear that you have not the full count of our current knives. We hold many more than two.”
She froze in the act of putting her cup down, and brought her gaze to his face.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. He took a deep drink of tea, and leaned to put the cup on her desk.
“Zaylana, who had been stationed at the Ozpart Quick Strike Center, killed her section chief and ten of the strike team before she was neutralized. Veesha, who had been on-station to assist in retraining, influenced the surviving eight of the team to report a Scout attack which had been turned aside, though at cost. She is continuing to influence the survivors, awaiting, as she has it, orders.”
“Orders?”
“From yourself,” he said. “She—when the separation occurred, it was accompanied by a feeling that it had been you who had . . . liberated us. Veesha awaits your plan.”
“You did not think that I had a plan?”
“I—” He met her eyes. “I did not wish to be enslaved again.”
Truth once more, from the very core of him.
She inclined her head. “Well enough. What else?”
“The network is not intact. There are quiet zones; operatives who have yet to report. I have not sent out a general inquiry, fearing this might call attention from the shadows. An unusual number of attacks by Scouts has been reported, which, in turn, were unusually effective. One supposes from this that Zaylana was not the only one to have slaughtered those in her care, merely the only one who did so in the presence of a colleague who was moved to stop her.”
Tarona Rusk forced herself to pick up the cup, to sip tea; to remain serene, despite the excitement roiling in her blood.
“We have reports, through normal channels, that various of the . . . more vulnerable succumbed to separation trauma,” Fel Pin continued. “There may be one Luck left to us—or it may simply be that his team has not yet noticed his absence. We fare little better in our inventory of those talents who had been contributing their energies to the common core. The dormitory here was blighted, though the majority of our high-level talents survived the trauma with little more than a headache, accompanied by a fracture, which quickly healed itself.”
The higher levels would of course have had the ability to Heal themselves—in many of the higher talents, the ability was innate. But—
“You say the majority,” she said to Fel Pin.
He bowed his head.
“We lost two: Aei Vin and Sondi.”
Tarona Rusk frowned.
Aei Vin had been the first she had recruited to the Department’s cause; a Healer, but not strong. The ties that bound them had been close; yos’Galan’s Healing would have acted upon him as powerfully as it had upon her. It was entirely possible that the trauma had overcome him. Indeed, he must have dropped where he stood, never knowing that he had been struck.
This other loss, however . . .
“Son
di succumbed to separation trauma?” she asked, hearing disbelief in her voice. In terms of talent, and sheer power, Sondi had been very nearly her equal. That had been why Tarona had been so very careful to bind her, and with all of the strongest cords: passion, sex.
Love.
Fel Pin reached for his cup, keeping his eyes averted, and drank the tea to the dregs. She could feel his distress. Distress. Those in her network had not been so cold as the operatives in their care. They could not be and do what the Department required of them. But it had been a very long time since any of them had been . . . distressed.
“She . . . ”
Fel Pin met her eyes.
“She survived the trauma, Mistress. She survived the break, and Healed herself. What she did not survive was her memory.”
Tarona Rusk closed her eyes.
After a moment, Fel Pin cleared his throat. “She left a message, Mistress.”
“Did she? What was it?”
“‘You lied to me, Tarona.’”
It was said in all of Sondi’s voice, mimicry being one of Fel Pin’s lesser talents, and it stabbed her through the heart. Oh, yes, she had lied; she had rewoven reality and perception; she had made the bonds sweet, and tight.
And there was never a Healing or a linkage made that did not bind both.
“She killed herself, then.”
“Mistress, she did.”
She took a deep breath, shuddering, and deliberately put the pain aside. She was the author of a thousand and more betrayals, and what she had done to bind Sondi had not been the greatest of them.
“So then,” she said, straightening, “we move on. The Commander forwards a report concerning the sudden illness of dramliz corresponding with the shattering of the network. She suspects nothing?”
“Commander of Agents has given complete responsibility for the dramliz into the care of this department,” Fel Pin said slowly. “She is fully occupied in mobilizing an invasion. Also . . . ”
She considered him with interest.
“Go on.”
“The . . . current Commander has been experiencing some difficulty maintaining the transfer. She has called a Healer to her on several occasions.”
She stared at him.
“A Healer.”
“Just so.” Fel Pin returned her stare with a smile. “She has been very careful to ensure the loyalty of the Healer, and has not called the same twice. However, the Healer she had with her soon after the separation deemed it prudent that the Commander not take too much interest in the business of dramliz, and was able to influence her to be very busy with the invasion, and even more invested in Korval’s destruction.”
“She was able to do that? The Commander Template . . . ”
“ . . . made it, as I understood the message, very difficult to plant the suggestion, and the Healer was constrained to build onto a passion already in place. This she was able to do, however, and so we are, for the moment at least, beneath the Commander’s notice.”
“Where is she now, this Healer?” Tarona Rusk demanded. “I must see her, understand what she has learned. If we can subvert the Commander—”
But Fel Pin was holding up his hands, palms out.
“The Healer—Hosilee ver’Fonat—was of course put to death after the Commander was done with her. She happened also to be a match-telepath, so was able to transmit to her partner before she died.”
Of course, she thought. The new Commander might be troubled, undertrained, and unable to manage the download, but she would not be so foolish as to ignore basic security protocols.
She drew a breath.
“I see. I will wish to speak with Healer ver’Fonat’s partner, as soon as it may be safely arranged. What news of our teams sent to Colemeno?”
“No news, Mistress. I think we must assume that they did not survive.”
“Hah.” She closed her eyes briefly.
“Very well,” she said, after a moment. “We must ascertain how many we are, and where we are situated. I want reports from all dramliz in the network, including their condition, the condition of those under their care, and their operating plans, if any. If we attract shadows, we shall not hesitate to use extreme measures.
“It would seem, from the information in hand, that the larger enclaves of techs and support personnel, as well as the rest of the lightly conditioned, are in our hands. The agents and field operatives remain a challenge, but let us consolidate our victories first.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
Fel Pin rose, bowed, and left her, the door closing smoothly behind him.
Alone, she leaned back in her chair, hearing Sondi’s voice once more:
You lied to me, Tarona.
Millsapport
* * *
I
Millsap was not a beautiful port.
It was understood that not all ports were beautiful, Padi thought. But it might at least have made a push to be interesting.
But, no. Millsapport was merely a semicircular monotone of samples houses along the outer edge, through which the port omnibus moved at a fair speed, slowing somewhat as it entered the second ring—agent offices, each exactly the same as all the others, with only the names—centered precisely over each door—different.
In fairness, the research she and the master trader had hurriedly completed had not promised anything else. Millsapport and its numerous outyards—which had made the Passage’s approach to its docking orbit more of a challenge than it strictly needed to be—Millsapport was about safe storage and the orderly transfer of cargo. The samples houses existed in case there should be a question regarding the quality of the contents of a particular pod awaiting pickup by its contracted ship. The agent offices were there to make certain the paperwork was in order, and that the port received its just and proper fees.
There was no need to catch the eye of newcomers, or entice fresh traders into a deal, and no effort was made to do so.
Millsapport, in a word, was bound, caught tight and trapped by its own system, which functioned well, as it had done for dozens and dozens of years. Padi had wondered aloud to the master trader, during their analysis session, what might happen to the port, to the agents if a new trader arrived, offering a fresh trade.
“Possibly, they would turn it away,” Master Trader yos’Galan said. “After all, they don’t need new custom. What they need most is to not disturb the custom they have.”
The port omnibus paused to take on a passenger—another agent, Padi supposed—dressed in grey business robes that matched the grey façades of the offices.
This one spared them a glance as he passed to a seat in the back. He looked tired, Padi thought, and felt something flicker along a set of nerves she hadn’t known she’d had until this second.
Not just tired, but anxious, even—
“Your pardon, Trader,” Father said from the seat beside her. “I wonder if you would honor me with your opinion of that structure?”
Padi turned toward the window, following the angle of his chin, but truly, the line of offices they were passing, now that the omnibus was moving once more, looked precisely the same as—
She felt her cheeks heat, and looked up to meet Father’s eyes.
“It just . . . happened,” she said softly.
“One may catch a glimpse,” he replied, “and that is an accident. To continue to stare, however . . . ”
“Yes, sir.”
Determinedly, she turned her attention to the window.
* * *
Shan gazed out the window as the omnibus lumbered on. He was not deploring the view, though it was certainly deplorable, but rather considering those other things he and Padi had discovered in the course of researching the port, and the systems which supported it.
Millsap lived—and lived well—because of the balance between its two Loops. One might argue their methods, but one could not argue that those methods failed of producing profit. Millsap had been profitable for a long time, and would continue to be so
just exactly as long as its client Loops profited.
And there lay the rub.
The Terran Loop was, to his eye, beginning to falter, though he could, as he had several times reminded himself, be wrong. The data he had was too sparse to support an in-depth analysis. He could buy more data and study the matter in the fullness it deserved. After all, he was a master trader; process and the ongoing health of ports were his legitimate concerns. Indeed, it might well be his duty to file a notice with the Guild, but he hesitated to do so on the basis of such flimsy evidence as was now in his hand. Master traders were, after all, held to a certain standard.
And a Liaden master trader bringing a Terran trade enterprise to the attention of the Guild—there would be politics to cope with, no question, and his taste for politics was even less acute than usual. But, after all, politics could be finessed, when necessary. The question therefore became—Was it necessary?
He took a breath, seeking to clarify his thoughts and settle his stomach, as the omnibus turned right down a thoroughfare that seemed to be lined with—could it be shops? Good gods, so they were.
He glanced at the seat just ahead of them, where Lina sat next to Karna Tivit of ship’s security. Hands folded on her knee, face serene, shoulders loose and level, she made a pretty picture of modest patience, quintessentially Liaden.
It had been decided by the ship’s three Healers that there was nothing to be gained by startling the Healers of Millsap. From there, it had been a very short step to deciding that Lina should act as their Healer-escort while Priscilla remained with the ship. Lina was a good, solid Healer trained in the Liaden style. There was nothing about her to raise eyebrows.
Priscilla, on the other hand, would have had the eyebrows of the entire Hall arcing into hairlines before they were ever admitted.
Even presented as dramliza, rather than Healer, there were too many odd energies roiling about Priscilla and her methods—especially if one were a Healer trained in the Liaden style.
