Shield of Drani (World of Drani Book 1)

by Melonie Purcell

  Sean swiped a panel and waited as a chair and viewer slid out of the wall behind him. The viewer he sent back into the wall, but the chair he kept. It was simple, blocky, and unpadded, but did the job. He sat, rested his forearms on his knees, and looked her dead in the eye. “Until now, you’ve never been gone from Drani, have you?”

  “Of course not. We don’t leave. Not even the Dran leave.”

  “So, your parents are still there, then? They still alive? Do they have both abilities like you?”

  “I imagine they are still alive, but I’m sure they don’t have both abilities. No one does. Just me.”

  “You act like you don’t know them.”

  Taymar turned back to the glass, but kept her mind on the captain. “Maybe that’s because I don’t.”

  That threw him. She hoped he would reveal how much he knew about Drani, but his mind sent only confusion. “How can you not be knowing who your parents are?”

  She didn’t look up. “Because I’m an arranged birth.”

  The confusion lingered along with a touch of irritation. Not as much as she would have liked. Irritated people gave more away. “And that means?”

  “It means I don’t know who my parents are. What do you want, Captain Sean? I know you didn’t come down here—up here—to talk about my childhood, so why did you come?”

  He sat back in the chair. “I came seeking information about Drani.”

  Well, that was true enough. Taymar looked over at him. With the field off, she could see through the opening at the front of the cell as if only air separated them. He looked weird with the orange hair budding from his jaw like tree moss, but she’d seen stranger things since leaving Drani. Like the braids of skin running along the Shreet’s scalps that melted into twisted ropes of hair. Now that was weird.

  She didn’t hate Captain Sean, but decided there was nothing to be gained by making it too easy for him. “What do you want to know? It’s the second planet from our star. It has three major landmasses, but two are on the poles and are uninhabitable. That leaves all of us living together on the green belt in two major population centers, Newete and Razere. There are six satellites orbiting Drani, but…”

  “Taymar. I already have all that information. I want to know about living on the planet. About life between the Arleles and the Drani. T’ings like what is an arranged birth? But you’re already knowing what I’m looking to find out, now aren’t you? After all, I shut down the dinisolate field on purpose, didn’t I?”

  “Shutting down the field was either brave or stupid. I’m not sure which. How do you know I won’t kill you?”

  Those green eyes didn’t flinch. “I don’t.”

  “I don’t have to touch you to kill you. I can do it from right here where I’m sitting.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  “Then why did you turn off the field?”

  “I s’pose it’s because I don’t t’ink you will. I want to be having an honest, open conversation with you. I’m guessing you’ll be more willing to have that conversation if you can use your telepathy, so I disabled the field. Now, all I can do is hope I’m not wrong. Am I? Are you t’inking to kill me?”

  Taymar watched him, listened to him. He was a little nervous, but mostly he just wanted answers. That she could understand. “How about a trade?”

  “Well then, let me guess. Tea. Out here.” Frowning, Sean stood to leave. “I’m not here to play games. I’ve too much to lose for that.”

  “So do I.”

  Sean paused, but didn’t speak.

  Shifting so she could face him, Taymar pulled her knees up to her chest and used the second blanket to cover her legs and feet. “You aren’t the only one who wants information. One of your questions for one of mine.”

  “I still can’t tell you where we’re going.”

  “I’m not stupid. I know that.”

  After another pause, Sean nodded. “I s’pose that’s fair enough,” he said, taking a seat. “But, I’m reserving the right to refuse a question. Let’s begin. An arranged birth?”

  Taymar smiled. His mouth might refuse, but she doubted his mind would. “Some Arleles are more talented than others. We are Alki. Talented Arleles usually make talented babies. The problem is that two Alki Arleles almost never get together. Too much competition. So, when one of them wants a union with a less capable Arlele, or more likely a Dran, the trade-off is usually to agree to an arranged birth. The baby is given over to the Council. And now it’s your turn.” When he nodded, she took a deep breath and continued. “Is Nevvis coming?”

  A flash of frustration filled his mind along with an image of Targer, but he quickly hid it behind thoughts of repair orders. Too quickly. Not good. “Apparently so,” he said. “Who is this Nevvis, anyway? To you, I mean. Who is Nevvis to you?”

  Captain Sean was a fast learner. Taymar settled back against the wall. Two could play that game. “My ki.”

  Sean grinned. “Go on, then. Ask your question and then finish answering mine.”

  “When is Nevvis coming?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He wasn’t lying. Not good at all. “Every Arlele has to have a ki. The ki decides what you get to do or not do. Your ki has to take care of you, too. If you can’t pay your own way or something happens to you…having a bad ki is miserable.” She paused to drink in Sean’s thoughts. They were too jumbled to be of any help. “You are the ki on this ship, I think. At first, when I saw you in the lab, I thought you were a kar, but that was wrong. You are a ki. The doctor’s ki for sure.”

  Sean wobbled his hand back and forth. “Sort of. I s’pose you could be right. A kar is a guard, right?”

  She wobbled her head. “Not exactly. A janu is a guard. A kar is like…a kar is like the hairy man who tried to shoot me.”

  “Ah. A soldier then? Like an enforcer?”

  Taymar nooded.

  “I’m not a kar or a janu, so I’m guessing you’d be right. I’m a ki. Is that a bad thing?”

  Taymar shrugged. “Are you bad?”

  “Well now, I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the telepath, aren’t you? Am I bad?”

  “Captain Sean, I’m a telepath. I hear your thoughts. I can’t see into your soul.”

  “’Tis probably a good thing you can’t.” Relaxing against the back of the chair again, Sean kicked his legs out and crossed them at the ankle. “Have you heard any interesting thoughts yet?”

  A tiny smile slipped out, and Taymar used the excuse of arranging the blankets to bring it back under control. “Not the codes to your computer controls or anything useful, if that makes you feel better.”

  “Ah, but you heard somet’ing you liked, didn’t you?”

  “You met Targer. Fun guy, isn’t he?”

  “Hmph.” He glanced up at the ceiling in something just shy of an eye roll. “I didn’t meet him exactly, but can’t say I’m sad about it. I can’t say he’s sad about it, either. The man couldn’t get me off the com fast enough. Didn’t have a lot of patience for us non-telepathic types. You two are a lot alike in that respect, aren’t you?” Sean cocked his head at Taymar and smiled. “I wonder if Nevvis will be the same way.”

  Taymar shrugged. “It’s a telepath thing.”

  “Well now, if that were the case, Ranealla would be short-tempered too, but she’s not. Why do you s’pose that is?”

  “How should I know?” she said, scooting the half-full glass to the side so she could watch it and Sean at the same time. “Maybe she’s patient because you’re her ki. Maybe she’s not as telepathic as we are. Her mind doesn’t feel the same. Maybe she’s the one hiding something instead of you. No idea. My turn. Why did you come get me off Daryus?”

  “Wait up, now. You asked if Targer was a fun guy, and I answered you. That makes it my turn, doesn’t it?”

  “You asked why Ranealla was more patient.”

  Sean leaned his head back and laughed. “Christ on a fecking bike! I’m getting my arse handed to me over here.” S
till laughing, he leaned forward and focused on Taymar again. “Remind me not to play cards with you.”

  Taymar frowned at him as he laughed. She couldn’t guess what he was laughing at, let alone what his last comment meant. “I don’t know what you just said. Universal is still new for me.”

  With a little wave of his hand, Sean sobered, but his smile remained. “Never you mind it. Just a saying. But since you mentioned it, how is it you speak my language so well? My research said your entire planet switched over Universal a mere three years ago. Is that so?”

  “It wasn’t…” She stopped herself mid-sentence and glared. The question was, had he skipped over her turn on purpose? His mind wasn’t any help. It was busy trying to grasp the monumental task that Drani had undertaken when the Council decided to change languages. Maybe he was just distracted. She’d know soon enough. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Ah, so I didn’t. Why did we come get you on Daryus? Because I was ordered to go find you, and Daryus is where you were hiding.”

  “But why?”

  “Why were you hiding out on Daryus? Well, I don’t know, since it was you doing the hiding.”

  Taymar leveled her deadliest look at him and got a soft chuckle in reply. Maybe she should strangle him with her teke, but just a little. Enough to make him take her seriously. It wouldn’t help her cause, but it would feel good.

  “Take it easy, lass. I’m just having a go at you. I don’t know why they want you. I was t’inking it might be you answering that one for me. I’m guessing Nevvis will explain all of it.” Sean scratched at the stubble of hair growing on his cheek. “And technically speaking, that was two questions, now wasn’t it?”

  Intentionally ignoring his last statement, Taymar tried to think of how to turn his mind to the ship’s layout as she answered his earlier question. “Those of us who are telepathic got a kinari. It’s like a mental knowledge transfer.” She continued to explain when Sean’s eyebrows shot up. “There are certain telepaths called rakils who can organize and transfer information in large chunks. The tekes had to learn the new language by going to classes. I can’t imagine what a nightmare that had to have been.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Sean said, sitting up in his chair, his expression a canvas of disbelief. “What you’re saying, then, is that you learned a whole new language just by having someone shoot it into your head? Just like that? You walk in not knowing Universal, and you walk out speaking the t’ing?”

  Even though she didn’t want to like him, Captain Sean, with his funny speech and orange hair, was growing on her. “No,” she said with a smile.

  “All right, then. You had me…”

  “It takes several days, sometimes longer, to unravel a kinari. I was scheduled for a second transfer, but I got in trouble and was sent to reteaching before it happened.”

  For the longest time, Sean stared in silence. Her effort to shock him enough to drop his guard worked. His mind was wide open. As he sat across from the opening trying to decide if she was exaggerating, Taymar busied herself with one of the blankets and worked out the ship’s design. Unfortunately, Sean regained his focus much sooner than she had hoped. “Reteaching is some kind of corrective action?”

  Taymar nodded. “It’s the most serious. No sakuritu is the most serious, but that’s only…it doesn’t happen often. And it’s my turn.” A second attempt at shocking information out of him might give her away, so Taymar decided to try a different strategy. “Why is there hair growing out of your face?”

  Instinctively, Sean’s hand went to his face. “It’s called a beard. I take it, then, the people on Drani don’t have any facial hair? No, wait.” He waved his hand palm out. “Don’t answer that. I take it back. That’s not my question. I want to know about Drani law.”

  “Drani law? I don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “You said you got in trouble and went to reteaching. How does that work, exactly? Is there a trial process or something?”

  “Well, I guess.” Taymar rubbed at her band, watching the browns swirl along the path her finger made. “I mean, it’s not like anyone has to decide if you did something wrong. You wouldn’t be there if you didn’t. They just decide on the punishment. Is that what you call a trial?”

  Sean shrugged. “A sentencing. How do they know you’re guilty?”

  Taymar frowned. For a ki, the man seemed a little slow. “Because all Dran are telepaths. They can read your mind, as you call it.”

  “Right.” Sean scratched at his beard again. It made his skin turn red. The thing must itch. “The whole telepathy concept is a bit of a bite for me. It’d be your turn, then.”

  The game was getting old, and she wasn’t getting the information she needed. She shifted her back against the wall and continued drawing patterns on her band. “You don’t have any other telepaths on the ship? Other than the zimit I put in the medbay?”

  Anger flushed through Captain Sean’s thoughts, turning over a few more bits of information in their wake. The shuttles were locked down, but the shuttle bay wasn’t. That was good to know. All the shuttles were in one place at least. And the ship wasn’t moving. Probably also a good thing. As he brought his thoughts under control again, he, like her, began to wonder if their banter was worth it. “No other telepaths. That band you’re playing with there. What’s it do, exactly?”

  A quick swipe through his thoughts told her that he already knew the basics, but she started there anyway. “It tracks us. It can make its own containment field or react with one already set up. It identifies us and our ki and our status. You have one too on your sleeve, right?” she said, pointing with her chin to the computerized patch on the shoulder of his uniform.

  “I s’pose I do. It’s not quite up to the task of yours, but it does do some of the same things.” Sean glanced over at his arm patch and then back to her band. “How do you go about getting yours off? It looked to us like it lays right against your skin.”

  At that, Taymar laughed. “It doesn’t come off,” she said, giving it another scrub with her fingernails before tucking the arm under the blanket. “It just grows with us. Do you always just do whatever you’re told? Even if you don’t want to? You just do it.”

  Sean’s expression gave away his confusion, but his thoughts became guarded. “We are at war, Taymar. I am sure you know that. The Shreet have destroyed worlds already, and they want to take more. We are trying to stop them. Sometimes that means making sacrifices.”

  “Yeah. I know all about making sacrifices. That’s when you ruin someone else’s life with your decision and call it a sacrifice to make yourself feel better.” She met the captain’s green-eyed stare. “So. Do you? Do you feel better?”

  A silence hung between them for what felt like days before Captain Sean finally spoke. “I’m not wanting to be your enemy, Taymar. But if it comes to that, then it does. As I told you already, my first priority will always be my crew.”

  “You are right about one thing. You don’t want to be my enemy.” She shifted against the wall and pulled the blanket tighter up over her shoulder. “We are done.”

  Sean didn’t bother trying to coax her back into talking, and she had to admit to being a little disappointed. Not that she was going to keep up his question-and-answer game, but mostly because she wanted to win. He just swiped the chair back into the wall and walked away. He paused by the door, and the dinisolate field dropped into place like a tarp over her cell as the door closed behind him.

  Well, that could have gone better, she thought, looking around the room. Nothing to do now but wait.

  ###

  Jalkean shifted on his chair for what had to be the tenth time, and belatedly tried to make it look intentional for at least the eleventh time. He knew they had left him waiting on purpose. Two Shreet guards had dropped him off here in the oversize conference room what felt like hours ago. He had pushed and swiped at anything that looked remotely like a sensor, but if the room had a viewer, he couldn’t find it. Not
that it would have helped, since the Shreet language was as unintelligible in written form as it was to hear.

  Unable to sit still another minute, Jalkean pushed his chair back and started circling the room again. He made it to the far side of the table when the door slid open. The woman who stood in the opening made the doorway look narrow. She was easily twice Jalkean’s size in width, and a good hand taller as well. The layers of clothing flowing around her only accentuated her size as they billowed out over her feet and hands. Chains and ropes covered in beads and bells dangled from her neck and adorned her hair, and from the muted tinkling as she stepped into the room, they must have decorated her wrists or ankles as well. Jalkean thought how it was fortunate she was a large woman to support all the weight, but shut out any further commentary the instant his mind met hers. Rydon was her name. And she was a telepath.

  “Correct,” she said in perfect Universal, her voice low and husky. “I, like you, Dran, am a telepath. My name is Rydon.”

  Jalkean shielded his thoughts behind the recent memory of looking for a viewer as he sized up his visitor. A telepath, yes. A good telepath, perhaps not. “Jalkean,” he offered, but kept the distance between them. No point in physical contact if he could avoid it. “It’s good to hear a language I can understand.”

  “Yes, well, I imagine the brae will provide you with a translator soon enough. You were looking for a view screen? Why?”

  Jalkean shrugged. “Bored. Curious about what has been happening and where I am. Trying to learn the language, since I assume I will be here for a while. But mostly bored. Is there a reason I’m here?”

  “I would assume that you are here because you wanted to be.” Rydon jingled her way over to a chair across from him and pulled it out. The unsuspecting piece of furniture quickly disappeared beneath layers of fabric, and he refused to consider what else. “You are the one who made the raid on Drani possible, are you not?”