“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, not even looking. “Doctor Zayshul tended it earlier today. It’s healing now.”
Shaidan frowned, obviously concentrating. “Did it hurt?” he blurted out suddenly.
Another question? “Yes, it hurt at the time, and when I had it dressed,” he said with a faint grin.
Again the look of concentration. “Why?” The word was strangled, as if saying it had cost his son dear.
“Why did I save Kezule?” he hazarded.
Shaidan nodded his head vigorously until he put his hand out to stop him. Dear God, his son was trying again to break the programming!
“Because I had no reason to let him get killed.” He stood up, reaching down to gather Shaidan up into his arms. “Enough questions for now. We should eat. We could both do with some food,” he added as a wave of light-headedness passed through him and he staggered slightly at his son’s unaccustomed weight.
Shaidan flung his arms round his father’s neck, clinging tightly, his ears flattening to the side in fear.
“I won’t drop you,” Kusac said reassuringly. “You can sense people even with the collar on, can’t you?” he asked quietly as he walked over to the food dispenser.
“I’m not allowed to talk about . . .” began Shaidan.
“Never mind,” he said gently, reaching up to stroke his son’s head. “Let’s eat.”
Suddenly he found it easy to talk to his son. It was as if a dam had been released. Shaidan sat opposite him at the meal counter, face alert, eyes wide in anticipation, his ears pricked forward so as to miss nothing.
He told him about the world they’d visited for the hunt, and the joy he’d felt to have soil beneath his feet and a sky above his head once again. Then he spoke of Shola and its impossibly blue-on-blue skies and seas. Every now and then, he’d stop to see if Shaidan wanted to ask a question, suggesting the cub nod his head if he wanted to know more. Shaidan did.
The meal over, he led the way to the sofa, inviting his son with a gesture to sit beside him. When Shaidan chose instead to curl up against him, all was well with his world. Nothing else existed for him right now.
All too soon, the door chimed. It was M’kou and M’zynal come to take Shaidan back to the Command level. Left alone, the mood of contentment remained as he returned to the sofa and sat down. Surrounded by his son’s scent, all doubts about Shaidan’s parentage left him. It mattered not at all that his son’s genesis was due to Zayshul, all that mattered was that Shaidan existed and was his.
His mind drifted as he planned a future for them. There was so much he wanted to show him. Shaidan had never seen a sunrise or sunset, never felt the wind on his face lifting his hair and pelt as he chased his first chiddoe—or rhakla, he amended mentally, remembering Shaidan’s size and age. Fathers loved and treasured their daughters, but a son was to be cherished because even in these advanced times, their lives were fragile, still in the lap of the Gods as young males were more vulnerable to childhood diseases.
Sleep claimed him again, but this time it was full of whispers too faint to be heard and fractured erotic images that might have been memories.
The buzzer on his wrist comm drew him back to a grateful wakefulness and the realization it was time for his meeting with Zayshul up on the hydroponics level.
Camarilla-manufactured devices that Giyarishis had placed throughout the Outpost warned him that the Hunter was on the move. Time to connect to the Unity-net, and time to use the Isolator. It was imperative that the male made his way unhindered to the pool where the sand-dweller female waited.
Sinking into the requisite trance, he checked the potentialities, making sure none of the inhabitants would be injured or aware of what was happening.
Throughout Kij’ik, the lights glowed brightly, quickly reaching the frequency that rendered everyone—but Kusac—instantly asleep. The Hunter, with the modifications Kzizysus and Annuur had made to his brain, was exempt, as was the sand-dweller female, alone in the pool room. The Isolator’s effects wouldn’t be long-lived, just long enough for the Hunter to reach his objective.
As he left his rooms, the brief flare in the corridor lighting made him hesitate. There had been the occasional blackout during their first few weeks here while Kezule’s crew had rerouted power from unused sectors to the two engineering stations they’d chosen as their main ops. As far as he was aware, there was no such work going on now. Undecided, he stood in the open doorway for several minutes, waiting for a comm message to explain the power surge. When none came, he sealed his door and headed along the corridor toward the main emergency stairwell to the hydroponics level.
The corridors he passed were as empty as the one he was in, and for a wonder, there was no one from Security on the air lock. It struck him then that he’d not worked out an explanation to account for his presence there, nor could he think of one right now. He’d no idea how long his luck would last, but he was grateful for it. Half expecting the door to be sealed, he tried it, sighing with relief when it opened.
The metal flooring of the stairwell sucked the heat from his feet as he stepped out of the inhabited area. His toes clenching involuntarily, he hurried toward the stairs. Red safety lights bathed the area in an eerie glow, staining the metal floor and walls the color of freshly spilled blood. He shivered again, feeling the hackles on his neck rise as if in prescience of some disaster past or yet to come. His vision dimmed till all around him he could see the shadows of armed troops rushing past, hear the subdued babble of their voices, overlaid by the harsh, barked orders of their officers.
He staggered, instinctively grabbing for the handrail at the foot of the stairs to prevent himself from being swept away in the tide of bodies. Steadying himself, he took the steps three at a time, wanting only to put distance between himself and these ghosts of the past, trying to ignore the fact that the sound of his claws hitting the metal echoed the pounding of his heart.
In the Sholan temple, something rose from its seated position within the shadows and expanded to life-size. Vartra was angry. Kusac must be stopped from meeting with the Prime female, otherwise the Camarilla would draw him deeper into their web of deceit. One pace he took, then a jagged shaft of energy split the darkness in front of him. Cursing, he watched as blue and silver light poured through the rent, pushing the edges apart. Damn the Camarilla!
The low humming vibrated deep in his bones, setting his teeth on edge as he watched the portal form, preparing himself mentally for what would follow. Running was useless, there was nothing he could do to prevent himself from being transported to where they were. This time, he’d be damned if he’d wait for them to take him. This time, he’d go to them.
As the tear widened, becoming a gateway, he stilled his mind, attempting to banish his anger. When it was Sholan-sized, he stepped into it. Energy roiled around him, buffeting him from all sides, causing him to gasp for breath and fight to hold onto his senses.
This time, he emerged conscious, but only barely. Rising from his fours to his feet, he looked around, narrowing his gaze so the pinpoints of light that surrounded him didn’t dazzle his eyes. With a shock, he suddenly realized he could identify the distinctive scent he always smelled as TeLaxaudin. But there was another species out there this time, one he’d not sensed, or met, before.
Automatically, he reached out into the silence with his mind, searching for an individual with whom he could communicate. No sooner had he touched one than he was mentally repulsed and surrounded by a field that damped his psychic abilities, but not before he’d sensed the network that linked all the Camarilla together.
His anger burned cold now. “I’ve work to do. You’ve no right to drag me from my realm just for your personal whims.”
We have every right, he heard a voice say in his mind. Your interference in this matter will not be allowed.
He stiffened, ears swiveling down and to the side in the beginnings of a show of his anger. “I have a geas to fulfill,
as you reminded me last time. He is my blood heir. I have every right to guide Kusac.”
You have no rights here. There is more at stake than you know. The Hunter must fulfill his destiny.
Vartra made a sound of disgust. “Destiny is flexible. You stole mine, used it for your own purposes. And he has a name! Kusac Aldatan!”
We serve the interests of the many, not the few. All prosper because we Watch.
He forced himself to laugh. “You do more than that, you meddle in others’ lives!”
We do not meddle. The tone was dismissive.
“My pardon,” he said sarcastically, sketching a mock obeisance. “I forgot. You get others to do the meddling for you while you cower safely here, behind your shields.”
Another mental voice very different from the one he usually heard, spoke suddenly in his mind. A few of us choose to work outside the safety of the Camarilla. Our bodies are not shaped for danger, we need the services of others.
“How many souls like mine have you stolen?” he demanded, mind racing as he realized that one of the other beings might be speaking to him now. “Who else have you trapped between life and death?”
Your spirit would have stayed in the twilight realm without our interference because of the geas placed on you. We merely provided you the opportunity to serve your species rather than just your family.
“You made me your messenger!” he snarled, reaching out with his hands to touch the limits of his prison as he tried to focus on the darkness beyond. “Release me now! I have work to do!” He could feel the force field, curved like the shell of an egg, beneath his fingers.
There is nothing for you to do but let events take their allotted course, said the first voice.
Anger burned fiercely in him again. “Allotted? You made this situation! There’s nothing natural about his obsession with the Prime Doctor! No good will come of it!” He pounded his hands against the solid wall of nothingness.
You will remain here until it is done, said the voice, unperturbed.
He snarled again, letting his hands splay out over the invisible surface. “Damn you!” he muttered, more to himself than to them as he leaned slowly against it. “Damn you!” They understood nothing about Sholans! Once Kusac knew what had been done to him—and he would find out—then he wouldn’t rest until there had been a reckoning, and not just him, all his family, for as many generations as it took.
A slight movement in the darkness at the edge of his vision caught his attention.
You value family ties above all else, said the new voice. We have given the Hunter those ties to the cub and the sand-dweller female. It will make him work to form an alliance with the male for their sake.
“You think so? What of the General? How will he react to his wife having an affair with Kusac, his sworn enemy?” he demanded.
The concept of wife is new to him. Already he turns to his other females.
“You don’t care what it costs the people involved, do you? You hounded me to enhance the Telepaths, then to add Human genes to stabilize them, now this! When will you stop playing Gods with my people?”
The silence lasted so long that a doubt began to grow in his mind. Had the appearance of the Human female in his time not actually been due to the Camarilla? Maybe they weren’t as omnipotent as they’d have him believe.
He lifted his head, straining both his ears and his mental senses to try and hear them.
You will say nothing, do nothing, that could endanger what must be, said the original voice eventually.
“I will do everything in my power to help him!” Vartra retorted.
Pain gripped him in claws of fire, squeezing him till he could barely draw breath. Blood roared in his ears but through it all he could hear the voice repeating like a litany,
You will say nothing, do nothing, that could endanger what must be.
He came to, not in the temple on the Outpost, nor in the one at Haven—not even at Stronghold, but on the grass at the edge of a small stream.
Groaning, he sat up—and saw Her sitting opposite him, feet dangling in the water, shaping a clump of mud from the bank in Her hands into a ball. He looked into eyes as green and distant as the forest behind Her.
“Ghyakulla!” He sucked in a breath of shock, knowing She’d brought him here from the Void when the Camarilla, finally finished with him, had cast him out. It had been some time since the Green Goddess, Mother of all things living and growing on Shola, had called him to Her presence.
Her ball completed, She threw it into the stream beside him, laughing gently as the water splashed over his face.
He blinked, rubbing it from his eyes as Her thoughts filled his mind.
Drink from the stream, be refreshed, then return from whence you came. There is much you can still accomplish.
By the time he could see again, She’d gone. Only Her footprints in the mud at the side of the stream remained.
Leaning forward, he lapped at the water, drinking his fill, feeling the strength and energy returning to his limbs, quieting nerves still tender from the Camarilla’s torture.
As he sat up, the landscape around him faded, becoming a mist which gradually swirled and eddied until it coalesced into the Outpost temple on Kij’ik. He was back, but he knew instantly he was too late. Trying to get up, he found his limbs refused to respond, they were leaden weights that anchored him to the floor. Once again, the Camarilla had conditioned him so he had no option but to obey.
Tears of anger and frustration burned his eyes but he brushed them away with his forearm. There was no time for that; if Ghyakulla said there was much he could still do, then he had to find out what it was.
At the end of the covered walkway that led out into the hydroponics level, Kusac opened the air lock iris and looked carefully through. The lighting levels had been reduced to station night. Only the safety lanes, outlined by small pinpoints of light, were visible. Closing the door behind him, he began to pad silently down the pathway. Ahead, to his right, he saw a glimmer of light shining through the empty security office. The TeLaxaudin was still awake.
Keeping to the deep shadows where possible, he dropped down to his fours and crept silently past the office toward the buildings opposite the empty fields. At the end of the herb plot, he slowed, checking down the main side corridor for any of the crew working in the waste recycling plant, but the irises were closed.
At last he reached the narrow corridor opposite the lower field that Zayshul said led to the pool. The herd beasts’ barn was down there and sniffing the air, he searched amid the animals’ scents for hers. He found it easily, and automatically sending out soothing thoughts to the cattle, followed her scent down past the vet’s office to where the entrance stood. There was a moment of panic until he saw she’d left the security lock off for him.
He’d dreaded—and longed for—this moment, he realized, remembering the erotic dreams from which his alarm had awakened him. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the access panel and waited for the door to slide open. Stepping inside, he found himself in a world more alien than the one they’d visited on the hunt. Semitropical plants and shrubs surrounded him, forming a border to the winding paved path that stretched ahead. It led, he assumed, to the actual swimming pool. As he locked the door from the inside, he remembered Zayshul had said it was far more than just a pool, that it had a religious purpose for her people. Its very existence was a reminder of just how alien the Primes were.
The air was warm and redolent with the smell of vegetation and damp earth, making him think of the Taykui forest. Between one step and the next, he stopped as thoughts of home filled his mind. What in Vartra’s name was he doing here? He’d been torn by guilt over the one sexual encounter they’d had on the Kz’adul, had hidden it from everyone even though he’d been an unwitting participant. But there was an electricity between them, a strange attraction that he found almost impossible to resist. If they were alone together, it would happen again, he knew it would, and this time, he’d hav
e no excuse. How could he live with himself, let alone face his family? What if there was another child? Was that why Zayshul had lured him here? He’d been insane to even consider her invitation, let alone agree to it!
He forced his panic back, reminding himself that he was here because she’d promised to answer all his questions truthfully. If he could just keep his distance from her . . . then her scent shouldn’t affect him, but he needed her answers. Just as he’d had to come to terms with what J’koshuk had done to him, so, too, did he need to know what part Zayshul had played in the genesis of his son. Then, perhaps, he could also lay that part of his past to rest.
His mind made up, he began to head along the path.
There’s an island in the center, she’d said. Meet me there. Security’s used to me going to the pool late at night. If you’re careful not to be seen, we shouldn’t be disturbed.
The heat and humidity were beginning to make him uncomfortable and light-headed. Reaching for the neck of his tunic, he pressed the seal, pulling the front open by several inches.
He could smell the water now as the path began to widen out, leading him toward the poolside. A narrow wooden bridge spanned the water in front of him, leading onto a small vegetation-covered island. The air was even more humid here, carrying an underlying smell of minerals. It was obviously a mineral spa. Walking onto the bridge, he stepped into the open, stopping for a moment to take in the undeniable beauty and complexity of the place.
To either side, and beyond a second wooden bridge, where the trees and shrubs met the water, small, partially concealed artificial beaches had been constructed. It was a feat of engineering as well as landscaping, and completely out of character here in the heart of an ancient Valtegan military outpost.
Between Darkness and Light Page 27
