“Asked for her? How could he ask them for her?”
“The conspirators took the General forcibly to their headquarters in an attempt to recruit him to their cause. That’s where he met all the cubs for the first time, how he knew they existed.”
Kezule must have known then who Shaidan was, yet he’d asked for Gaylla. That did surprise him. “What did he do with her?”
“Nothing, Captain. Doctor Zayshul deprogrammed her first.” He glanced sideways at Kusac as they came to a halt outside a door. “She and the Doctor were very fond of each other, Captain. Gaylla followed her everywhere. Doctor Zayshul was most upset when she had to leave with you.”
He remembered the way Gaylla and Zayshul had hugged each other when it had come time to leave. “And Shaidan? How does she treat him?”
“Like a mother, Captain,” he replied before opening the door.
“You must remember to use your own language when speaking to your father,” Zayshul was telling Shaidan. “Do you remember what we talked about earlier? About families and parents?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Shaidan said as he continued to laboriously copy the Sholan writing he’d been given.
“You may answer any questions the Captain asks you,” said Kezule from where he stood by the door.
Shaidan looked up at the General, wondering if he was being told he could choose not to answer, but the Valtegan’s back was turned to him so he couldn’t read his expression. He bent his head back to his writing, wishing he didn’t have to meet the Captain. If not for him, he’d be helping the General in his office, or following him around the Outpost as he visited all the workstations. That was far more useful than copying Sholan writing.
The door chimed then slid open. He didn’t need to look up to know who it was, he could smell their scents immediately.
“Good evening, Kusac,” the General said. “I’ve set this room aside for you and Shaidan to use. It has a meal dispenser as you can see. M’kou will come back for him in two hours. Please don’t leave the room, this level is off-limits to you and your crew. If you need anything, ask the guard on duty outside and he’ll attend to it for you. Zayshul, it’s time to leave.”
Shaidan watched the Doctor getting up out of the corner of his eye.
“Remember what I told you, Shaidan,” she said quietly, leaning over him. “Answer the Captain’s questions properly.”
“I’d like Doctor Zayshul to stay for a few minutes,” Shaidan heard the Captain say.
“Another time, Captain. I promised you two hours alone with your son. You wouldn’t want me to break my word on your first visit, would you? Zayshul, now, please.”
As the door closed behind them, suddenly he felt very alone. Without moving his head, he glanced up through his eyelashes at the newcomer. Dark-furred and dressed from head to foot in a long, purple-edged black robe, the Sholan Captain was an imposing presence in the small room. Gripping his stylus more tightly, Shaidan concentrated on his writing again.
The Captain came round to his side of the desk and pulled back the chair beside him, the one the Doctor had been using, and sat down.
“Hello, Shaidan.” His voice was low and pleasant.
He ignored the Captain because an answer wasn’t required.
“Has the General told you who I am?” the Captain asked after several minutes’ silence.
“You’re Captain Aldatan, my father,” he replied grudgingly.
“That’s right. And do you know why I’m here?”
“No.”
“So we can get to know each other.”
The silence grew again and Shaidan began to hope that he might decide to leave. Suddenly the stylus was plucked out of his hand. Startled, he looked up.
“I want to talk to you, Shaidan,” the Captain said quietly, putting the stylus on the desk out of his reach. “What’re you doing?”
“Learning to write Sholan.”
“What are you copying?” The Captain picked up his reader and looked at it.
“An article about Shola from your database.”
“Annual rainfall. Not very interesting, is it? I’m sure it can wait until later.” The reader joined the stylus. “This meeting isn’t easy for either of us, Shaidan,” continued the Captain, reaching out to turn his chair around so they were facing each other. “But it will get easier if we both make an effort. I see you’re wearing a psi-damping collar. Does the General take it off so you can practice?”
“I know how to use my Talent. I don’t need to practice.”
“Who taught you?”
“I’ve always known.” He wished he didn’t have to answer such pointless questions but the General and the Doctor had said he must.
There was a short silence before the Captain spoke again. “Do you get a chance to use it often?”
“I use it when the General tells me to do so.”
“When does he do that? Who does he ask you to read?”
Shaidan lifted his face and looked him square in the eyes. “When he pleases, and it’s been to read you.”
The Captain reacted only with the barest of nods, as if he was expecting that answer. “And what do you read from me?”
“Very little. Your mind is quieter than anyone’s, except for the TeLaxaudin.”
Once more the Captain nodded then sat back in his chair. “It came as a shock to me to discover I had a son I knew nothing about,” he said quietly. “I expect it was as much of a shock for you.”
Shaidan said nothing as he tried to suppress a flash of anger. The Captain was nervous, Shaidan could smell it in his scent, even though it was very faint. He felt a grudging respect for him. Most Primes wouldn’t have been able to control their scent so well.
He’s Sholan like you, Shaidan, the General had said. Learn about him, learn how to read his body language, his expressions, the tone of voice he uses. Learn what it is to be Sholan, because when you understand a species, you know their strengths and weaknesses.
He looked at the Captain properly this time, taking in the black robe with its wide sleeves, the black-furred hands lying on his lap just below the belt with its many pouches, and the black-handled dagger over the left hip. Looking higher, he saw the long dark hair framing an oval face from which eyes as amber as his own regarded him steadily.
“I’ve come to take you home with me when I leave, Shaidan. You have two sisters. The older one is called Kashini, and the younger was born as I left Shola. I don’t yet know her name. You’ll meet them when I take you home. Meanwhile, as I said, we have to get to know each other, form a bond.”
“I belong here, with the General!” he blurted out. “Not with you! I have value to him!”
“You have value to me. We belong together. You’re my son. There’s a bond of blood between us,” said the Captain, leaning forward and taking hold of his hands. “You know there is, I saw you recognize it last night.”
He snatched his hands away, overwhelmed by the unfamiliar emotions rushing through him. “I belong to the General, not you! I’m his vassal, I have value to him! You can’t take me away from here, he won’t let you!” He was afraid, and finding it difficult to breathe all of a sudden. Anger at this strange alien male whose arrival had turned his life upside down surged through him. “You’re not my father! I don’t have one! You mean nothing to me!”
The Captain leaned forward, grasping him by the shoulders this time, making him feel trapped. “You’re not a slave, Shaidan! Sholans are a free people, no one owns them!” The hands tightened their grip and the Captain’s glowing eyes seemed to grow larger. “The General brought me here because of you. Don’t tell me you can’t feel we’re connected because I know you can. What you feel is blood calling to blood. Your mind might try to deny it, but your body—your instincts—know we’re related.”
Reaching up, he tried to pull the Captain’s hands away. He knew he was telling the truth, but he didn’t want to believe it. The Captain’s touch made it worse, heightened the need to be held by him,
to surrender.
“Let me go,” he said, his voice tight with emotions he didn’t understand. He scrabbled at the Captain’s hands, feeling his own claws bite through the skin and draw blood. The metallic scent of it filled his nostrils, intensifying his feelings, making his eyes fill with tears. “Let me go!”
“Be still,” ordered the Captain, keeping a tight grip on him.
The voice vibrated through him and he recognized what it was even as he obeyed.
The grip loosened and the Captain removed one hand to wipe his tears away with his thumb. “What you’re feeling is the call of our shared blood, Shaidan. It links father to son, family to Clan. It’s what we are.”
“No!” he shrieked, wrenching himself loose and overbalancing the chair in his urgency to escape the pull he felt toward this male. “I don’t want to be linked to you! You’re not my father! You’re a vassal like me! I saw you yesterday when M’kou made you kneel in front of the General!”
“Shaidan,” began the Captain, getting up to help him.
Scrambling to his feet, he turned and fled, the door opening automatically as soon as he got to within three feet of it.
The soldier on guard outside turned around instantly and made a grab for him, but he dodged past him easily and began running down the corridor, fleeing them all as if his life depended on it.
Rubbing the scratches on his hand, Kusac made his way more slowly to the door, aware that his first meeting with his son had been a resounding failure. He’d been too anxious, spoken of leaving here too soon, but despite his son’s half Prime parentage, it had been impossible for him to ignore the call of their shared blood.
“They’re looking for him now, Captain,” said the guard as he stepped into the corridor. “If you wait inside, he’ll be brought back to you shortly.”
He shook his head. “Leave him be. He obviously doesn’t want to see me today. There’s nothing to be gained by forcing him. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
“I’ll take you back to the elevator then, Captain.”
He nodded, silently cursing Kezule for orchestrating the circumstances of their meeting the night before so that Shaidan could see the power the General had over him and his crew. He was in an even more impossible situation now—that of trying to convince Shaidan that they weren’t Kezule’s vassals.
As he reached out to hit the control pad to summon the elevator, he realized his hand was trembling. The meeting had shaken him. Now he understood why Kaid hadn’t been anxious to meet his own father for the first time. He’d no idea how to treat a kitling of Shaidan’s age, let alone a son he’d never met before: a son whose mother was the wife of an implacable alien enemy.
Dodging past the startled guard, Shaidan began to run, heading as far away from the office beside the Command Center and the Captain as he could get. When he ran out of breath, he stopped, sinking down onto the floor on his haunches, and sobbed. Why had the Sholan Captain and his crew come here? Until yesterday, he’d been content, known where his place was in the order of life around him. Now that security and order had been taken from him, overturned by someone claiming to be his father and wanting to take him away from the only family he’d known.
Reason and common sense began to return. The General needed and wanted him, why else would he have kept him? He wouldn’t let the Sholan Captain take him away. If he worked hard, performed every task to the best of his ability, he could make himself indispensable. No matter what he said, the Sholan Captain was only a vassal like himself. His tears began to slow as he rubbed his hands across his face.
The smell of blood—his father’s blood—filled his nostrils again, bringing back the flood of emotions that had terrified him. Something deep inside him did recognize their relationship, the pull of their shared blood, and ached to acknowledge that link. His tears began to fall again.
“You can’t run away from what’s inside of you, little one,” said a soft Sholan voice as a hand gently touched his shoulder.
With a whimper of fear, he tried to pull away and press himself against the wall. Blinking his tears back, he stared up, not at the Captain as he’d feared, but at a stranger.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, attempting to keep his voice steady. “The Command level is forbidden to Sholans. It’s only for the Seniormost.”
“I got lost. Besides, you’re here,” the adult male said, mouth dropping open in a slight smile.
“I belong to the General,” he said defiantly. “I’m his vassal. I help him, have value to him.”
“Who told you that? The General?” The stranger reached out to touch his cheeks, wiping the tears away with gentle fingertips.
Shaidan opened his mouth to say yes, then stopped, realizing that the General had never actually said that. “No one told me, I just knew I was.”
“Don’t you think that strange, Shaidan?” he asked, squatting down on his haunches beside the child. “You belong to no one but yourself, cub.” He reached out and tapped Shaidan’s forehead. “In here, where it really matters. You owe the General gratitude, yes, for taking you from the Directorate, and for bringing your father here, but nothing more.”
“Your Captain says I belong to him because he’s my father.”
“That’s a different kind of belonging, one of family, of sharing the same blood ties.”
Shaidan surreptitiously hid his hands behind his back, hoping that the stranger couldn’t smell the blood on them. “How can he be my father? I was birthed from a tank like the others. We all were.”
“Where are the others now, Shaidan?”
“The Captain took them.”
“He took them to those who could return them to their own parents. You know he did. Which means you all have parents, even you. And, yes, Captain Aldatan is your father.”
“Then why didn’t he come to the Directorate and rescue us?” he demanded. “Why was it the General who came?”
“Because your father didn’t know you existed until the General told him about you.”
“He must have known! How could he not?”
“Didn’t the Doctor or the General tell you why?”
“They tell me what I need to know,” he answered automatically.
“Is that you or a Prime vassal talking, Shaidan? They may tell you what you need to know, but do they tell you what you want to know? Like how General Kezule knew who your father was and sent for him to take the others to their parents, and why the General kept only you.”
“Curiosity is unacceptable in a vassal.” His words were slow this time as he wondered how this stranger knew his thoughts as they had only just begun to form in his mind.
“But you are curious, aren’t you? About your father and how you came into being without his knowledge,” the stranger pointed out as he stood up.
Shaidan stared up at the tan-pelted male in the gray tunic, wondering why it was so easy to talk to him.
“We have to go now, little one,” the stranger said, holding out his hand, palm uppermost to him. “They’re looking for you. It’s time to go back to them.”
“The General will be angry with me,” he said, shivering as he pulled his hands out from behind his back and accepted the stranger’s.
“Most definitely, but what about your father?”
“I clawed his hand,” he admitted as they began to walk back the way he’d come. “Made it bleed.” He risked a question, and a sidelong look. “Would you be angry?”
The stranger laughed, squeezing Shaidan’s hand reassuringly. “My cubs are long since grown up, but in the circumstances, I think not. It’s a father’s and mother’s responsibility and duty to try to understand their cubs. You must learn to ask questions, Shaidan. If you don’t feel confident enough yet to ask, then at least think them. No one can be angry with you for doing that. Some of the answers you already have if you look for them. There’s more of your father in you than you know.”
“I’m a mind reader. I can hear other people’s thoughts. So can others.”<
br />
“Can you hear them when you wear your collar?”
“No,” he admitted.
“So your thoughts are your own. Learn to be yourself, little one, rather than what other people want you to be. You have the first of many choices before you now. Do you want to be a vassal, a slave with no family, belonging to the General and living here, alone, with none of your own kind? Or do you want to be Shaidan Aldatan, firstborn son of one of the oldest and most powerful telepath families on Shola?”
“My father’s a telepath?”
Stopping at an intersection of corridors, the stranger smiled down at him, letting his hand go to ruffle the hair between his ears. “Ask the Doctor, Shaidan, or your father. I must go now, before they see me. There’s an emergency stairway around here somewhere. Remember what I’ve told you,” he said, running his thumb along Shaidan’s jaw in an intimate caress as he turned to leave. “And give your father a second chance. This isn’t easy for either of you.”
“Wait! Do I have a mother? Do you know her, too?” he asked, suddenly anxious to know.
The stranger hesitated briefly. “There isn’t an easy answer to that, Shaidan. All I can say is that when the time is right, you’ll know who she is.” Then he was gone.
As Shaidan watched him disappear down the side corridor, he heard the sound of booted feet approaching rapidly and his world suddenly began to close in around him again.
The General was furious. Though light, the blow that he delivered to the side of Shaidan’s head lifted him off his feet and would have sent him crashing into the wall had M’kou not stepped in the way, using his own body to catch the cub.
“How dare you leave the Captain like that and make a liar out of me!” Kezule hissed. “I gave my word that you’d spend two hours each day with him. You’ll go back instantly and stay there for the designated time, today and every day! Do you understand?”
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