Triorion Omnibus

by L. J. Hachmeister

  “For fifty years our ancestors struggled to survive on ships that weren’t outfitted to last more than a few. But just when the situation looked bleakest, our saviors arrived.”

  Helena’s smile doubled the crow’s feet around her eyes. “They were the first aliens our ancestors had ever seen. Some feared them, but when they healed our sick, we quickly knew they were trustworthy people.”

  “I know the story from there,” Jetta said. “The Prodgies transported the humans to the Homeworlds. That’s where the Starways’ history depends on the teller. Some praise the Prodgies for saving a dying race, others curse them for introducing a viral population. Humans brought new vices—like drugs and alcohol—and a host of diseases. But they possessed unprecedented fertility and interspecies compatibility, making them a welcome solution for many struggling races. The ‘purity’ of the Sentient races dissolved, and because of this, many of the elder races still curse the Prodgy for their charity.”

  “You sound as if you are reciting from a history book.”

  “I am,” Jetta said. “A Brief History of the Starways, chapter 22, pages 111-515.”

  “Ah,” Amargo said, waving his finger. “But what I know you can’t find in your history books, Commander. You don’t know why the Prodgies came to find us, do you? Earth is on the other side of the galaxy.”

  “There is speculation that there was a distress signal—”

  “Hogwash,” Amargo said, his mustache twitching. “With technology that ancient it wasn’t even halfway possible.”

  “You see, dear,” Helena interjected, assuming a gentler tone, “a Prodgy Seer sent ships to intercept the human fleet. She saw them in a vision—one so violent that it nearly killed her. When Captain Delphius met her, she told him he had to promise her one thing if he wished the humans and Prodgies to survive.”

  “And that was?” Jetta asked.

  “She made us promise...” Helena began, then stopped abruptly. She looked at Triel and then her husband. Amargo nodded, his eyes full of an uncertain excitement. “She made us promise to commit ourselves to the elder teachings and deciphering ancient script. She said it would be a Promise Keeper who would pass the sacred knowledge on to the last Healer.”

  Jetta finally noticed how ghostly Triel’s color had gone; her eyes were wet with tears, and her body trembled.

  “What’s going on?” Jetta said, putting herself between Triel and the archeologists.

  “It can’t be me,” Triel whispered.

  Helena’s voice remained soothing despite the weight of her words. “And she told us the last Healer would become the next Great Mother.”

  “Amaroka!” the Jumaris whispered in unison.

  Amargo laughed. “We taught them a bit of Prodgy history. I think they’re just as excited to meet you as we are, Triel Aelana of Algardrien.”

  Jetta had never mentioned Triel’s full title, let alone her rarely-used Healer name. It piqued her suspicions.

  “Her arrival was prophesied eleven hundred years ago,” Amargo answered.

  “It can’t be me,” she said, picking at the webbing between her fingers. Then her voice changed. Jetta felt her friend’s anger rise in conflicting waves of guilt and denial. “It can’t be me. Arpethea told me—”

  “What you needed to hear,” Lady Helena said, her blue-gray eyes as kind as her voice. “After all, you’re here, aren’t you?”

  “Wait a minute,” Jetta said. “What does this mean?”

  “It means that we can teach your friend the lessons of her elders so that you can find all the answers you seek on your journey,” Amargo said.

  “We don’t need your help,” Jetta began, but Triel took her hand in hers.

  “Yes, we do, Jetta. I can’t read Amiqi. It was only taught to the higher-ranking members of the tribes.”

  “What?” Jetta exclaimed. “Then what were we supposed to do when we got here?”

  “No need to worry, Commander. We’re here to help you. You can sense that, can’t you?” Amargo said. “I bear no ill will toward you or the Healer.”

  “Then how did you get a band of Jumaris to yield to you?” Jetta demanded. “They eat the faces of outsiders. I can’t imagine them submitting to some ordinary Deadskin. They bow only to fear and blood.”

  Amargo’s face soured. “They are Jumaris, but they are not cannibalistic man-haters like many of their kin. When the Deadwalkers came, the only ones to survive were those who would accept the help of others.”

  “These forty have lived with us in the Temple and help keep Reivers at bay, sometimes with only the reputation of their more violent relatives,” Lady Helena said.

  “What do they get out of it?”

  Amargo’s fat cheeks turned a rosy pink. “We saved them from the Deadwalkers. They are indebted to us.”

  “Jetta,” Triel whispered, touching the back of her hand. “They’re here to help. This was all... expected.”

  “Expected?” Jetta whispered back, crouching down beside her.

  Triel traced the markings on one of her arms. “I rebelled against my people’s teachings from a young age, but even when I ran away I knew deep down that I couldn’t escape my responsibilities to the tribes. Maybe Arpethea told me what she did so that I would not think twice about running when the Dominion came, but she knew that I would have to one day return.”

  Amargo and Helena nodded approvingly. “Then we must begin your lessons—there isn’t a moment to spare.”

  Jetta wanted to infiltrate their minds, to pillage every secret, expose every indiscretion, but then she thought of Salam.

  “I won’t trust you until you show yourselves to me,” Jetta said.

  Lady Helena smiled. “We have nothing to hide.”

  “But do you have something against me?”

  Amargo looked at her quizzically. “You must have run into the thing that calls himself Salam. Not many telepaths survive his tricks.”

  “Thing?”

  “He’s a human-Berroman hybrid, meaning he can alter his human appearance, but he can’t shift into the forms of other species. He was a notorious interrogator for the rebel forces trying to seize the Kercis mines operated by the Tre. It was rumored that he learned some technique there to torture their workers before he was captured by allies of the USC and taken to the Labor Locks.”

  “So his hands...?”

  Amargo huffed, making his belly jiggle. “Another one of his tricks. He’s a shapeshifter. He can manipulate his appendages any way he pleases.”

  “My dear, do not be afraid of us. Do whatever you need to do,” Lady Helena said, her sweet face glowing in the light of the lanterns.

  Jetta closed her eyes. She let herself fall away from her thoughts and into the auras of the people surrounding her. The Jumaris were virtually unreadable, but their thoughts were at rest. Triel was upset, but underlying it was an old determination that rose to the forefront of her mind. Everything the archeologists had said confirmed the Healer’s beliefs, and nothing Jetta could say or do would persuade her otherwise.

  Jetta directed her attention to the minds of the two human archeologists. She fell straight through the shallows of their thoughts and into the deeper trenches of emotion winding through their memories.

  “You’re telling the truth,” Jetta said, opening her eyes again. Amargo and Helena looked a bit shaken but otherwise intact.

  “My Gods, Commander—have you never been able to trust people without having to fish through their heads?” Amargo said, holding the lantern to her and studying her face.

  Jetta pushed it away. “Let’s get this started—we don’t have much time. What’s first?”

  “Triel, come with me,” Helena said, extending her wrinkled hand. “I will take you to the worship chamber of the Gods.”

  “Wait, I’m going with you—” Jetta started, but Amargo held her back.

  “You, Commander, must come with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in this place, to be unbalanced will
bring about nothing but bad fortune.”

  Jetta scoffed. “Excuse me?”

  Amargo’s tan eyes turned steely. “Do you want to help your friend?”

  “Of course!”

  “Then you must first help yourself. I will take you to the Diez di Trios, or the Court of Three.”

  “What is that place?”

  “It’s the place of judgment.”

  Jetta crossed her arms. “Why are you taking me there?”

  “You came here because you wanted to uncover the truth about Rion; you want to see where Saol of Gangras crossed over into Cudal. You want to know the truth about the next world, yes?”

  Jetta guarded her words. “How did you know that?”

  The shadows cast by the lanterns made Amargo’s face look strangely disfigured. “This is a living place, Commander Kyron. I bade you to be mindful of your thoughts, your feelings, and your secrets. Follow me, and I will show you everything you need to know.”

  Jetta followed Amargo down the dark corridor. She looked back; the Jumaris stayed behind, staring at her as the distance grew between them. The two wolves followed her a short distance but stopped as they reached the edge of the light cast by the Jumaris’ torches.

  “They won’t follow?”

  “No,” Amargo confirmed. “This place is not, how you say, welcoming.”

  Jetta didn’t know how to take that, but as the psionic vibrations steadily increased the further they traveled into the musty darkness, she didn’t debate it.

  “Why are you helping me?” Jetta asked as they descended deeper into the heart of the temple.

  Amargo turned around and rolled up his sleeve. Inked into the skin on the inside of his right upper arm was an intricately designed tattoo much like her own. “I must keep the promise of my forefathers,” Amargo said. “And you are my only hope.”

  Chapter V

  Blackbird. That was the word that Tidas Razar whispered before falling back into his coma.

  Jaeia let the word marinate as she studied the stars from the sanctuary of her quarters, hoping that it would rekindle a lost memory buried somewhere in her gleanings, but so far it hadn’t sparked so much as a glimmer.

  Lost in the cold shivering of the stars, Jaeia’s thoughts turned to what she so recently witnessed. She had monitored Admiral Unipoesa’s arrival and his interaction with Wren. Unsure of her own intentions, she followed him to the intensive care unit, where she waited behind a ventilation column, listening as he vented his guilt and grief to the comatose Minister.

  Having initially followed Unipoesa because she was angry and wanted answers, she realized it was more complicated than that. When Victor sent them the video of the drunken admiral professing his sins, it had conjured up something far beyond anger and hurt.

  “They’re monsters. We should have killed them when we had the chance.”

  At first she had taken Unipoesa’s statement to mean he regretted keeping her and Jetta alive, as Victor clearly wanted it to come across, but that was before she witnessed his confession. During his episode with the Minister, the admiral’s mind hemorrhaged memories far faster than she was accustomed to receiving; even now she was still digesting the experience. She couldn’t believe the extent of the Command Development Program’s violations of the Sentient Rights Tenets, or how brutal the admiral had been to his own students, especially his own children, Li and Tarsha. It tarnished everything she had ever felt for him and whatever potential he might have.

  Except it wasn’t so easy to brand him an ironfisted monster. Unipoesa’s feelings for Li and Tarsha were fiercely complex, as were his motivations for his brutality, a tangle of obligations that she still hadn’t completely unraveled after an hour of walking the decks. But he obviously felt responsible for how far they had fallen, the profound guilt begging to be made physical.

  To wish for death, for oneself or others. It was unforgivable, the last resort of the weak-willed—but then a memory jerked up from her childhood and dismantled her conviction.

  Her mind rewound back to Fiorah. She was three years old again. Jetta and Jahx had contracted the Gypassi virus and were being tended by Galm back at the apartment. They were burning with dangerously high fevers, and Jaeia had gone with Lohien to find medicine.

  The suns were unrelenting in the burnt orange sky as the midday heat beat down on the few inhabitants brave enough to travel during the hottest part of the day.

  Jaeia struggled to keep up with her aunt, who was moving quickly down the main drag from one area of shade to the next.

  “Not much further,” her aunt said, but her voice was anything but reassuring.

  Lohien pulled her along, not noticing that one of her shoes had fallen off. The boiling asphalt burned her sole, but she kept quiet, knowing that they had to reach the public health and handouts office on the lower east side before they reopened and were swarmed by the other needy slum rats.

  “Almost there!”

  Up ahead Jaeia caught sight of the barred windows of the public help office. A dilapidated structure sandwiched between two abandoned buildings, it was patched with scraps of tin and composite fiberboard. The only door leading into the building bore pock marks from angry rioters.

  “Hello?” her aunt yelled, banging on the door and peeking into the windows. “Is anybody there?”

  They were fully exposed to the suns, and even now, years later, Jaeia could feel the choking heat. She shielded her face, silently balancing on her one shod foot and wishing for her aunt to hurry.

  “Hello?”

  She wobbled and accidentally set her other foot down but jerked it back up with a yelp. Jaeia didn’t look at her naked foot, afraid she would see it sizzling to a crisp.

  “Please,” Jaeia whispered, but her aunt ignored her. She imagined her tender skin blistering pink, then charring black.

  “I need help!” Lohien shrieked.

  Jaeia searched for cover from the roasting suns, but her aunt held fast to her hand.

  She slipped back into her connection with her siblings, but their minds were strained and unreadable with sickness.

  “What?!”

  A surly woman with a beaked nose and permanent scowl popped open the face plate in the center of a reception window.

  “Please,” Lohien begged, “I need medicine for the Gypassi virus.”

  “We’re out,” she croaked, already beginning to close the face plate.

  Lohien shoved her fist through the barred window, preventing the women from closing the face plate. Blood dripped down her wrist.

  “Please! My children will die!”

  The women gave Jaeia a hard look through her thick glasses. “On this planet, lady, they’re better off dead.”

  Jaeia didn’t know how much longer she could last. The suns felt like they were centimeters from her skin. Soon her clothes would catch fire and she would burst into flames.

  “I’ll give you anything—anything!” Lohien said.

  “You’ve got nothing I want, Sukk’ath,” the beak-nosed woman spat. “Get back to the gutters!”

  The expression on her aunt’s face marked the first time Jaeia had really seen the fragility and hopelessness of their situation.

  “Here. Take this,” her aunt said, removing the chain she kept hidden beneath her blouse. Dangling from the silver necklace was a gold wedding band.

  The beak-nosed woman examined it with feigned indifference, but Jaeia could sense the greed seething from her pores.

  “No launnie worth it,” she muttered as she shoved the medicine bottle through the slot.

  Jaeia watched her aunt take the medicine bottle with a look of defeat. Maybe her aunt wouldn’t have had to give up her wedding ring if they weren’t around. Maybe she and Uncle Galm would be better off. There wouldn’t be three extra mouths to feed, and maybe Yahmen wouldn’t be so hard on them.

  “I’m sorry,” Jaeia started to say, but her aunt looked away.

  “Let’s go home,” was all she would say.


  Lohien hadn’t noticed her unprotected foot or the tears in her eyes. Maybe her aunt wished it too. Maybe it would be better if they were dead.

  Her memories leapt forward to a few months later. She was back in the apartment, huddled under the cots with her siblings. Every time she thought things couldn’t get worse, Yahmen proved her wrong.

  “I told you I don’t have any more money!” Galm pleaded in the living room. Yahmen was tearing the place apart, breaking windows and ripping fixtures right out of the wall.

  They all knew what was coming; it had been building for weeks now. Jetta and Jahx were shaking violently, both of them anticipating the blows that would soon come their way. For some reason Jaeia couldn’t stand waiting for the inevitable. Despite her siblings’ protests, she crawled out from under the cots. When she peeked around the corner, she immediately wished she hadn’t.

  Lohien was sitting on the only unbroken chair, eyes cast downward, her hands folded neatly on her lap.

  “Then what are you going to give me? The debt is 500,000 ulians. You couldn’t make that up in a thousand years of labor,” Yahmen said, punching a hole through the drywall.

  Galm wrung his hands. His voice was broken, halting. “I know what you want, but I can’t—that’s not something I—you can’t have her.”

  No, Jaeia thought, you can’t let him! You’re the elder brother!

  But he did. Galm would never fight Yahmen. Even as little kids they knew that Yahmen lorded it over his meek older brother.

  Yahmen laughed. Then he grabbed Galm by the collar and slammed him against the wall. Lohien wept silently as Yahmen struck her husband in the face again and again. Galm did nothing but cry like a helpless animal.

  “It’s her or those rats. They’re young, but there’s a buyer for every age,” Yahmen snarled.

  The air seemed to disappear from the room, leaving Jaeia gasping for breath. The sweat dripped off her nose as she waited impossibly long seconds for her uncle’s decision. But Galm said nothing, squeezing his eyes shut as if wishing himself away. Yahmen laughed as he grabbed Lohien and dragged her screaming toward the entryway. Jaeia ducked back into their makeshift shelter and waited until they heard the front door slam.