Catalyst

by Fletcher DeLancey

  After tonight’s party dispersed, Tal was going to have a serious talk with Ekatya. This could not go on.

  Of course it was Jaros who asked what everyone wanted to know. “What happened? Why couldn’t you breathe?”

  Ekatya looked at Lhyn, who closed her eyes briefly before turning to face the curious child.

  “I’m recovering from an injury. It happened two moons ago, and I’m fine now. But as Lanaril can tell you, sometimes the emotional recovery takes longer than the physical one.”

  “Very true,” Lanaril said, diverting Jaros’s attention. “We’re still counseling Battle of Alsea veterans a cycle and a half later. Most of them are recovered enough to only need a little help now and again, but some of them will need continued healing for the rest of their lives.”

  “That’s why Lanaril knew what to do,” Tal added. “And though I mourn the reason for her expertise, I’m very glad she was here now.” She looked at Ekatya and raised an eyebrow.

  It worked. Chagrin pushed the suspicion down to a low ebb, and Ekatya’s sincerity was more believable when she turned to face Lanaril. “So am I.”

  “I’m glad I could be here,” Lanaril said. “And very sorry if anything I said triggered it.”

  “You were talking about divine tyrees being mid empaths,” Jaros said helpfully.

  “Jaros!” Nikin scolded. “We need to avoid the trigger, not repeat it.”

  “How are we supposed to avoid it if we don’t know what it is?”

  “That’s a reasonable question,” Lhyn said, forestalling Nikin’s response. “And Nikin…thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For saying we.”

  His expression smoothed out. “I would give that consideration to anyone, but you’re not just anyone. You’re family now.”

  Jaros hopped off his chair and walked up to Lhyn. Placing a hand on her arm, he said solemnly, “I’m sorry you were hurt.”

  Lhyn stared at him, an incredulous huff of air escaping her throat. Then she put her hand over his and asked, “Do you give warmrons?”

  In answer, he threw his arms around her shoulders. The angle was awkward, given her position on the sofa, but she made the best of it with a smile that lit up the room.

  “Thank you,” she said when he pulled back. “That really helped. It doesn’t hurt at all now.”

  He nodded and went back to his seat, trailing satisfaction and pride behind him.

  Lhyn watched him go, her smile unabated, then looked around the room. “None of you said anything to set me off. I did it to myself. And I’m the one who needs to deal with it, so please don’t worry. I’ve had a lovely warmron now, so I’m in perfect health. Can we get back to what we were talking about before I so rudely interrupted?”

  Tal wasn’t sure they should let it go so easily, but Lanaril spoke up. “Yes, we can. And I was thinking that we have a significant issue with our new divine tyrees: they’ll have to be trained.”

  Lhyn’s relief at the change of subject was almost tangible.

  With a final squeeze to Tal’s hand, Salomen sat up straight and said, “That should have been the first thing we thought of. Can you imagine how shocking that must have been for them?”

  “What are they talking about?” Jaros asked Nikin.

  “I don’t know.” Nikin turned to his sister. “Care to explain to the rest of us?”

  “Remember what I told you about how our empathic senses are magnified when we Share?”

  “Ah,” said Nikin and Shikal together. Micah looked thoughtful, while Lanaril met Tal’s eyes in shared understanding.

  Jaros kicked his heel against his chair leg. “Nobody tells me anything.”

  “You’re not alone in that,” Kameha said. “I’m still in the dark.”

  “We did tell you, Jaros.” Salomen turned to Kameha. “When Andira and I Share, we can sense other Alseans for hundreds of lengths. The divine bond acts as a magnifying lens for our abilities. It’s how we found where Herot was being held.”

  “I did wonder. That explains a lot.” He looked between Salomen and Tal. “So these new divine tyrees—they’re experiencing something like I would if I suddenly became a mid empath. I’d have no idea how to handle that.”

  “Shippers,” Lhyn said quietly. She and Ekatya shared a look that seemed to involve an entire conversation, their mutual realization washing through the room.

  “I still don’t understand,” Jaros said. “They’re already mid empaths.”

  Salomen nodded. “Yes, but when they Share, they’re much stronger. Possibly stronger than any other high empaths except Andira and me. But they have no control of it.”

  “Oh! So someone has to train them like Lancer Tal trained you.” He beamed at Tal, delighted to be on the same level as the adults. “Will you be doing it?”

  “Not if she has any self-preservation instincts,” Salomen said.

  Tal looked down, stifling a smile, but no one else in the room bothered to hide their laughter.

  “I don’t see why that’s so funny.” Jaros did not appreciate being left out once again. Nikin leaned over and whispered into his ear, leading Jaros to jerk up his head and stare at Tal. “But you wouldn’t—”

  “Of course not. Besides, training Salomen was difficult enough. I haven’t yet recovered.” Tal dodged Salomen’s flying elbow, then caught her wrist and pulled her close for a kiss. “I hope I never do,” she murmured, too low for anyone else to hear.

  “Golden tongue,” Salomen responded with a warm smile. “One day, that’s not going to work.”

  “But that day is not today.” Tal forgot herself for a moment, lost in contemplation of Salomen’s smile, until she registered the unease that was flowing from both Ekatya and Lhyn. “You two look as if you have something to say.”

  They turned their heads, but it was Lhyn who answered.

  “Your sudden increase in divine tyrees isn’t the only odd thing that’s happened lately. And by odd, I mean without precedent. But we can’t explain it until Ekatya tells you the rest of her story, and then I’ll have to tell you mine.” She looked over at Jaros. “And I’m sorry, Jaros, but neither of those are suitable for you to hear.”

  “Nobody tells me anything,” he repeated in disgust. “You always save the good stories for after I’m in bed!”

  Tal barely heard him, so focused was she on Lhyn and Ekatya. Their matching dread rolled off them and smothered her senses like thick, acrid smoke.

  “Not all stories are good, Jaros,” she said. “I wish they were.”

  “Words for Fahla,” Lanaril murmured, her gaze on Lhyn.

  CHAPTER 20:

  Family circle

  They had all settled into their chairs, spirit glasses in hand, and Ekatya noted that each of them was in the same chair they had occupied the previous two nights. The need to create familiar patterns was universal, it seemed, even among aliens. The only person who had changed chairs was Lanaril, who had inexplicably taken the seat next to Ekatya last night. She was there again now, a little too close for comfort.

  Footsteps sounded on the wooden deck, attracting everyone’s attention as Salomen came through the door.

  “Were there any problems settling our resident grump in bed?” Andira held out one of the two glasses in her hands.

  Salomen accepted it and sat on the couch next to her. “Several. He even tried the birth anniversary claim, not that he got very far with it.”

  “When is his birth anniversary?” Lhyn asked from Ekatya’s other side.

  “In half a moon. He’ll be ten. He argued that since he’s nearly halfway to his Rite of Ascension, that’s quite old enough to take part in adult conversations, especially at such a special time as my bonding break, which he will never get to experience again.”

  “He really did pull out every tactic,” Nikin said. “Reminds
me of someone else, now that I think about it.”

  “Nikin, I can and will toss you in the water tomorrow,” Salomen warned.

  “For being right?” Shikal’s smile was mischievous. “You gave me a very similar argument at about the same age. It didn’t work then, either.”

  “But it did work when I was twelve. That was when you let me stay up late to watch the final results of the Lancer’s election.”

  “Really?” Apparently, Andira had not heard this story. “Was it worth it?”

  “Fahla, no. It was the most tedious night of my short existence. I couldn’t believe I’d wasted my argument on that.” Salomen tipped her glass toward Shikal. “And you knew I’d be bored into a coma!”

  “Of course I did. Why do you think you won?”

  The best part of this bonding break, Ekatya thought, was watching Salomen with her family. She found their dynamics enchanting, all the more so because they had embraced Andira as one of their own. Andira had tried to tell her on their flight back from orbit that this was her family as well, but she could not make that leap. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps someday she could with the Opahs, but Lanaril—that was never going to happen. To see her flit in tonight and help Lhyn so effortlessly, when Ekatya had worked so hard to learn what she needed to do…

  Of course, she thought uncharitably, helping was a lot simpler when you could just go inside someone’s mind and fix them. And then there was Lhyn, blithely unconcerned about letting Lanaril in because she didn’t know how dangerous that woman was.

  Ekatya sighed and reminded herself of what mattered. Lhyn was all right. Lanaril had helped her avoid a full-scale panic attack, the kind where Lhyn could not handle touch, could not be reached, could only fight alone. Not only that, but she seemed to have given Lhyn a new tool to use. Lhyn had actually been excited about it afterward, wondering whether the same imagery would be as effective without Lanaril’s projection and, if not, how much difference the projection made. She was practically ready to start experiments.

  And Andira had made herself quite clear with that look. Whatever Ekatya felt about Lanaril, she was on her own with it and she was expected to deal with it. Soon.

  She glanced over at Lanaril, who was smiling as she listened to Nikin needle his sister, and acknowledged the truth she had been pushing back for days. This had to come out in the open. It was the only way she could move past it. She needed to hear what Lanaril had to say for herself.

  Turning back, she watched Lhyn watch the others, noting the relaxation in her face and the light in her eyes. Normally, she was drained after an attack, but whatever Lanaril had done seemed to have energized her.

  Or perhaps she was energized by the family that surrounded her. Because Lhyn was doing what Ekatya could not, and the others seemed very willing to take her in. Shikal, Micah, and Nikin had passed hanticks in easy conversation with her, answering her thousand questions and asking quite a few of their own. Salomen had taken a protective stance after that first night, while Jaros saw her as a playmate and wanted her to speak in various languages for his entertainment. Lhyn obliged with endless patience, despite having no experience with children. She told Ekatya that she didn’t think of Jaros as a child, but as a miniature Alsean with a related but separate set of behavioral responses to social situations compared to those of the adults.

  Trust Lhyn to break down child’s play into a scientific endeavor—and make it work.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” she murmured under cover of the joking about Salomen’s argumentative youth.

  “No, but I need to. Especially after having a panic attack in front of everyone. The Alseans have a saying that a secret shared is a burden divided, and I think they’re right. Besides, I’m tired of—” Lhyn stopped and lifted her head.

  Ekatya looked up as well, finding everyone in the room watching them expectantly. “We’re ready, then?” she asked into the silence.

  “If you are,” Andira said.

  Ekatya took a fortifying sip of her spirits and rested the glass on her thigh. “Then I suppose it’s my turn. Remember our quantum com call when I first took command of the Phoenix?”

  “Vividly. It was the day before I challenged Salomen.” Andira reached over and laced her fingers with Salomen’s without looking. “You were happier than I had seen you in a long time. I thought it was the joy of finally being back where you belonged, but now… You must have been so relieved to be free of Sholokhov.”

  “I thought I was free. After all those months of working for him, I shouldn’t have been so naive. Lhyn came out for the launch ceremony—”

  “In which they don’t launch the ship,” Lhyn interrupted.

  “They don’t?” Salomen asked.

  Ekatya had to smile. Lhyn was still disgruntled about this.

  “No, they don’t! Well, I mean, they do; it does leave the space dock. But it’s really just a stroll around the moon.” Lhyn set her drink down and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s an excuse to take a million or so journalists and Assembly ministers and Fleet brass for a ride, so they can get photos and vids of themselves, the ship, and her.” She pointed at Ekatya. “You would not believe how necessary it was for every single one of those blowflies to have a photo taken with her.”

  “Blowflies?” Andira repeated.

  “Parasites. Ugly, hairy ones. Yes, go ahead and laugh, but it took me two days to get from Gov Dome to Quinton Shipyards, and do you know how much I saw Ekatya during the twenty-six hours I was on board her ship? About an hour’s worth.”

  “That’s not true,” Ekatya said. “You spent the night with me.”

  “That does not count as seeing you. My eyes were shut.”

  “Not all the time,” Ekatya muttered.

  Lhyn’s cheeks turned a faint pink as everyone in the room laughed. “Right, fine, there was that. Anyway,” she said pointedly, “they launch, do a little parade around the moon, and then go right back into the space dock because they have to get all of those blowflies back off the ship again.”

  “Because we can’t finish our final preparations with a ship full of…dignitaries,” Ekatya said.

  “Well said.” Andira shot her a wink.

  “I do have to be careful not to pick up her vocabulary.” Ekatya leaned over to drop a kiss on Lhyn’s cheek. “And I treasured every minute of that hour.” Mostly, though, she appreciated Lhyn’s ability to lighten this moment. The story seemed easier to tell now.

  “You better have,” Lhyn grumbled, but her smile gave her away. “Four days of travel time.”

  Ekatya clasped their hands and rubbed her thumb lightly over Lhyn’s wrist. “The point I was starting to make was that Sholokhov didn’t come out for the launch. I was convinced he would show up just to make a statement. When he didn’t, I thought perhaps he was making another statement—that I wasn’t worth his time any longer. But he was just waiting for the right moment. We were back in the space dock, getting our last supplies and crew on board, and I was running around like—what’s your phrase here?”

  “A yardbird with twenty chicks,” Lhyn said before anyone else could.

  “Yes, that. And in one of the few moments of quiet that I managed to get in my office, my com officer told me I had an incoming call, priority blue. That’s our top priority, normally limited to flag officers and critical orders. I thought it had to be Admiral Tsao.”

  CHAPTER 21:

  New orders

  Aboard the Phoenix, 5.5 stellar months earlier (4 Alsean moons)

  Ekatya was on her way out of her office, her mind already clicking over the remaining items on her checklist before their departure from the shipyard in five hours. All of the systems had checked out, but she had a question about the last surf engine power graph. Once again she wished Commander Kameha were on board—he had always been so good at bypassing the details she didn’t need and focusing on the ans
wers she wanted. Her new chief of engineering had a stellar record, but he wasn’t Kameha and had never met a sentence he couldn’t make longer and more impenetrable. She was not looking forward to training him in how to speak to her.

  “Captain Serrado, you have an incoming call, priority blue.” The voice of her com officer cut the silence of her office and froze her in her tracks. She spun on her heel and walked back to her new desk, its surface still barren but for the transparent screen she had only just turned off.

  “Received, thank you.” She pulled out the chair and sat on the cushion that still held her body heat. A tap on the embedded deskpad activated the screen, revealing the priority blue emblem and a prompt for her com code. She entered it with a rapid press of fingers and waited the half-second it took for the system to corroborate her fingerprints with her code. The emblem shrank, making room for the caller’s com ID.

  “Shipper shit.” She closed her eyes and braced her forehead on her hand. “Just wonderful. What does he want now?”

  Taking a deep breath, she lifted her head, shook out her hands, and accepted the call. “Director Sholokhov,” she said flatly. “What a pleasure.”

  Sholokhov chuckled. “Captain Serrado, you were at great pains to tell me how appreciative I should be that you never lied to me. Why start now, just when I’ve gotten used to it?”

  “Professional courtesy.”

  He waved a hand in dismissal. “Courtesy has its place. I prefer business. As in, ours.”

  “We have no business. You don’t write my orders now.”

  “But I do.” His smile was predatory. “It’s in our signed agreement.”

  Oh, she hated this man. “Our agreement was that I served you until the Phoenix was ready. It’s ready. We’re done.”

  “Perhaps you should have paid closer attention to the wording in that agreement. You serve me until your ship is in active service. You’re about to leave on a shakedown cruise, are you not? With a skeleton crew. The Phoenix is not in active service just yet, Captain. You’re still mine.”