Shield of Drani (World of Drani Book 1)
Page 22
A soft jingle behind him drew the brae’s attention. Rydon nodded, confirming the truth in Jalkean’s words. Although the man’s skinbraids continued to burn deep orange, the tension in his mind eased considerably, so Jalkean continued to shield against Rydon as he moved forward with his plan. “Sir, I am sure you have reviewed enough reports by now to realize that taking over Drani will be more of a challenge than previous worlds have been.
“The key to Drani’s success is our technology, and the key to your success will be the Arleles.” Jalkean forced himself to adopt a more relaxed posture as he stood before the brae, feeling anything but relaxed. “What you need to do is disable Drani’s technological hold on the Arleles long enough for them to take down the Dran. Make no mistake about it. The Arleles will destroy the Dran, and themselves, if left unchecked. And pretty much everything you want Drani for. I mean, they are the reason Drani brakeal is so powerful and the field it generates is so clean.”
“I am aware of the role the Arleles play in mining. Make your point.”
“And I am sure you know about the armband they wear as well.” Jalkean held out his arm to demonstrate. “That band is our most advanced achievement. It extends from the wrist halfway up their arm and it allows us to track them, identify them, enforce social restrictions, restrain them, and contain them when necessary. Without that band, the Arleles would rule Drani. Until they fought themselves into extinction, at least.”
“When we take down the power infrastructure of Drani, the band network will go with it. I fail to see your point.”
The constant delay of the translators wasn’t helping the conversation along and Jalkean had to bite his tongue to keep from interrupting, which would have made it worse. “You absolutely cannot destroy the band network. The Arleles will wreak havoc on the planet, and you will have nothing left.”
An image of a huge room strewn with bodies and in utter chaos as Arleles and Dran fought for their lives filled the brae’s mind. The scene had taken place on a ship, but Jalkean couldn’t decipher which ship without his snooping being too obvious. “You need to disable the bands, but retain the ability to bring them back online.”
The brae stepped farther into the room and glanced at the paused language program. “And I suppose you have a suggestion?”
Jalkean glanced over as Rydon rattled her way in and the door finally closed behind them. “I do. Taymar. Teach her how to control the bands. With her dual ability, she can teach other key Arleles. They can take down the banding network, and once you have control of the planet, you can simply alter the design and bring it back online. At that point, you will control both the Dran and the Arlele populations. You will have your dinisolate, and Drani will have your protection.”
“And you will have your Taymar,” Rydon said from near the door.
Jalkean shrugged. “Maybe. She won’t easily be convinced to go back to Drani.”
Rydon scoffed. “She will have no choice.”
Before Jalkean could argue the point, the brae dismissed her idea with a wave of his hand. “She will have every choice,” he said. “You speak the truth. My source on the planet, though well placed and high ranking, cannot deliver the cooperation of the Arleles. Your Taymar can, possibly in more ways than you are even aware. But we cannot force her hand on this. She must agree to work with us.” The brae glanced around the room, taking it in as if he had never seen the common quarters. “How do we convince Taymar to join us?”
“Well, you have to get her here first.”
Yittbrae shot Jalkean a cold, dark glower.
“Then all you have to do is show her that joining her abilities with your technology will lead to a better world for Drani, and freedom from Dran rule for her. That’s all she really wants. To be left alone to live her life.”
Rydon’s comment was quieter this time, her need to stay in the brae’s good graces radiating from her mind. “Does she have the intelligence to take the plan back to the planet and implement it? It seems to me you are placing a lot of faith in someone you have never met. And from what I understand, these Arleles are kept ignorant for their own good.”
The brae turned toward Rydon and the door. “She disabled the power coils of a darit from a locked room and then stole a shuttle from an alliance ship without being discovered. This Taymar may be a lot of things, but I am confident she is not ignorant. Nor will she be easily swayed. I will make arrangements for her arrival.” Yittbrae stepped around Rydon, but paused in the open doorway with his back still to Jalkean. “It will be up to you, Dran, to bring her over to our side.”
Without another word, the brae left. Rydon’s unease and annoyance slipped past her weak shielding as she rattled along behind him, but Jalkean stood staring at the closed door until the last traces of the opposing telepath were gone from his mind before he allowed himself to suck in a long, deep breath. Gods, was he terrible at this spying thing. What had Nevvis been thinking when he had suggested Jalkean was the man for the job?
Chapter 15 – Atrium
The wall dots escorted them along another path of twisting corridors and, this time, two deck shuttles. Taymar logged every turn in her head and was proud to have anticipated more than a few of them. Nevvis’s annoyance with her mental mapping skills only made it that much more rewarding.
The second deck shuttle took them to a part of the ship she had yet to see. Like the rest of the ship so far, the milky white walls were lit from floor to ceiling, but something about this new section was different. The ceiling was lower and the corridors felt more confined. The sounds from the ship, though still subtle, were louder and seemed to come up from the floor. It even smelled different. More processed. Almost stale.
As the dots rounded a curve in the corridor, Captain Sean stepped out from a side door and intercepted them. His expression betrayed his surprise at seeing Taymar, but his mind let her know he wasn’t necessarily unhappy, just unsure. “Lieutenant Jalla said what the two of you did there in the p-bay was nothing short of a bloody miracle. We’d still be hanging there like a snared rabbit were it not for your help. Thank you for that.”
Taymar had no idea what a snared rabbit was, but she got the basic gist of it from his mind and nodded.
“We are glad we could be of help,” Nevvis said.
“You were, indeed. And I’ll be needing some more help right about now, but I’m t’inking this conversation is best had between just us two. Meaning you no disrespect, Taymar.”
“Not to worry,” Taymar offered. “I can amuse myself while you and Nevvis make plans to overthrow the universal order.”
The genuine concern for the safety of his ship rolled out of Sean’s mind as clear as spoken words. Taymar stifled her giggle, though, when Ranealla walked out of the room behind Captain Sean, her smile beaming as if she’d just met her childhood idol.
“Taymar,” she said in a raspy, clipped tone. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you properly. I owe you so much.”
Clearly not about to make the same mistake twice, Ranealla’s mind was well protected from Taymar’s cursory probe, but her intention felt genuine enough. Which was odd. Very odd, considering Taymar had just about killed her not a full day ago. “I’m sure you do, but I wouldn’t try to collect, if I were you,” Taymar said, noting how both Nevvis and Captain Sean tensed. Surely the crazy telepath wasn’t about to start something right in front of a ki. And her ki, for that matter.
Nevvis started to say something, but Ranealla interrupted him. “Oh no. You mistake my meaning. You have taught me not to be so arrogant with my abilities and about how the mind really works. Although I cannot say that I enjoyed the lesson, I am thankful for it.”
Well, that was a first. Nobody had ever thanked Taymar for a telepathic beating before. “I…just stay out of my head,” she said, not sure what else to say.
“Well then, I’m t’inking that could’ve gone arseways in a bloody hurry,” the captain said, glancing from Taymar to Ranealla and back.
“
It’s fine, Captain,” Ranealla said, still smiling. “Perhaps Taymar and I could get to know each other while you two talk.”
Nevvis shrugged, and Taymar just about lost her spots in shock. “She wants to see the atrium.”
“Are you sure that’d be a good idea?” the captain said.
“Sending Tay with Ranealla? Well, no offense, Captain. I am sure what you need to see me about is important, but I would rather be going to the atrium with Ranealla as well.”
Ranealla and Nevvis exchanged smiles, but Captain Sean’s mild irritation pouring from his mind ended the moment.
“The kind of trouble Tay can cause can’t really be stopped with proximity,” Nevvis said. He turned his full attention on Taymar, both physical and mental. “Do you intend any harm to Ranealla or anyone else on the ship?”
Taymar returned his stare with a smile that never left her lips. “No, ki. I don’t.”
He paused a little longer than she would have liked, his mind a heavy presence on hers as he searched her thoughts for a lie. He wouldn’t find one. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, if she could help it. She would, without reservation, in fact, but she didn’t seek it out and she intentionally hadn’t formed a plan for what she would do once she was out of his sight and not trapped behind a dinisolate field. “I will be keeping in contact with you,” he said finally.
This time it was Taymar who shrugged. She turned to Ranealla and sent,
she sent back as she turned and headed down the hall.
The words hit her mind in a lump. They were an idea, a thought form rather than separate words, and Taymar stood staring at the woman’s black braid swishing down her back as she headed toward the deck shuttle they had just left. After a long pause to sort out what Ranealla had actually said, Taymar hurried to join her. “Why is your telepathy so different than mine? It’s like a word package, not actual words. Not at first, anyway.”
“I am Asheerian. We were a race of people from an exclusively telepathic society on the planet Asheer.” Ranealla paused in front of the door to the deck shuttle. “We did not use spoken word until the destruction of our planet forced us to find homes throughout the galaxy.” The door opened and she followed Taymar into the tiny space, ignoring the seats as expected. “Since our race did not evolve using spoken words, our telepathy didn’t evolve like yours did. I am told that when I send to a non-Asheerian it can feel quite overwhelming at first.”
Taymar nodded. “Overwhelming is a good start. But your way of sending is so much...” She didn’t want to admit that anything Ranealla did was better—the woman was mostly responsible for her capture, after all—but she seemed likable enough. Aside from that, at least. “So much more efficient.”
The door slid open to another milky-walled corridor. There seemed to be an endless number of them. “So how did you learn to speak? If you didn’t ever speak, did you even have voices?”
“I am saltari, just like you, which means we are built essentially the same. We are all children of the Alioryda, the Ancient Divine, or whatever your belief system is. Even the Shreet, who come from so far away, are saltari who took a different evolutionary path.”
“So you do still have a fadi?” Taymar sent an image of her throat since she didn’t know the alliance word for the organ that enabled speech. “Or did you have one made for you?”
“Oh yes, we have a larynx. We just didn’t use it for words. But we do sing with our voices and use our telepathy to form the thoughts.” Ranealla stopped in front of a door much larger than the others. “We are at the atrium. There are rules you must know before we enter.”
Suddenly the atrium didn’t seem as appealing as it had one second ago, except that she had a job to do. “You sing? With your thoughts?”
“We do.”
“Do it.”
“Sing?”
Taymar didn’t need her telepathy to see Ranealla’s sudden discomfort. “Yes. I want to hear telepathic singing.”
Ranealla shook her head. “For my people, singing is a very intimate thing. It involves being very open with our minds.”
“I will promise not to hurt you,” Taymar offered, but she knew the second she said it that her offer wasn’t going to work. And besides, it was possibly a promise she couldn’t keep.
“Ummm…” Ranealla struggled with a polite way to say it, but her intention slipped out long before her words did.
“It’s okay,” Taymar said. “I wouldn’t trust you enough to open my mind, either.” She turned to the massive door. “Tell me the rules.” And I will decide if I will keep them, she finished to herself.
Ranealla’s expression suggested that she had heard Taymar’s silent comment, which wasn’t good. Taymar shored up her mental shield and tried to look interested.
“You cannot touch the water. At all. No drinking it, no wading in it. It is part of a very tightly controlled process for growing food and cleaning our oxygen. It cannot be contaminated.”
Taymar nodded. That rule seemed reasonable enough.
Clearly encouraged, Ranealla went on. “Also, do not enter any zone that is marked in purple lights. Those sections are closed.”
Taymar nodded again. She would wait and see if that rule was doable when she saw how many zones were purple.
After another pause during which Ranealla’s concern seeped out of her thoughts, she reached forward and placed her hand on the palm scanner. “And no eating in the atrium.”
The doors slid back just enough to allow entrance and then slipped closed behind them. It occurred to Taymar to be annoyed at how little time the door allowed her to get through, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the small rainforest that opened up before her. It was incredible. It wasn’t Newete, but it was still a sight to behold.
The room was huge compared to the space allotted to living quarters and pretty much every other part of the ship she had actually seen. A creek ran through the middle of it, interrupted at different points along its journey by marginally disguised machines. Plants large and small filled the area, some almost brushing the ceiling. Huge leaved vines in reds and greens and even purple covered the walls, and moss dripped from the sturdy bushes that formed the structured center of the room where trees would normally be. Taymar closed her eyes and sucked in the clean, humid air. It filled her lungs and brought with it images of Daryus. And Nevvis’s yard. She pushed those memories out and looked around for a different reason this time.
A path dipped in and out of the forested room. Small groups of people stood chatting along the walkway. Some sat at little round tables that dotted the small clearings. Almost all of them turned and looked at Ranealla and Taymar as they stood in the doorway.
“They don’t seem friendly,” Taymar said, but she knew the truth already. They were not telepaths, and their minds were as open as some of their mouths. Her reputation had preceded her. They knew she and Nevvis had repaired the ship. They also knew that she had nearly killed Ranealla, so seeing the two of them together was quite a shock to their small-minded systems.
Ranealla didn’t offer an explanation as she stepped onto the path. The fact that she knew Taymar didn’t need one wasn’t a good sign. Vowing not to underestimate this telepath that seemed so weak, Taymar fell in alongside her, smiling as the people already on the narrow path moved to make room.
Taymar stared at Ranealla for a second, confused by her intentions and even more confused when she picked up what could only be pride in the woman’s thoughts. The dark-haired telepath chatted with the man whose efforts to impress her bordered on comical, and if she was also scanning his mind for information, her thoughts betrayed nothing.
Apparently, the man’s obvious survival of the deadly Arlele encounter turned out to be some kind
of beacon. The other people in the room began making their way over to eye the stranger under the pretense of visiting with Ranealla. As fun as it might have been to dash their hopes that she was safe, Taymar had work to do and not a lot of time to do it in. So, she pulled on her keep away or I will hurt you shield that worked so well anywhere but on Drani. As planned, the few people trying to work up the nerve to talk to her backed off without even knowing why. Non-telepaths were so easy to manipulate.
Ranealla knew exactly what had just happened, and Taymar moved her one more notch away from despised when the other telepath just kept chatting with her people as if nothing had changed. Shielding her intent, Taymar followed the sound of the stream and headed up the path. What she needed was a somewhat quiet place where she could concentrate without drawing attention to herself. With another telepath in the room that was going to be especially difficult, but not impossible. After all, Ranealla wasn’t Nevvis.
The first spot she saw would have been perfect. It was a small cutout alongside the path with a table and some chairs almost hidden behind a curtain of bushes. Unfortunately, it was bathed in purple light. Taymar moved on, passing up another good spot because it was already occupied by a group playing a board game of some kind. She considered making them move, but that wouldn’t help in the end.
Two nooks later, she found one with a series of mats built into the floor, dotted with huge red ferns. It almost felt like Newete as she sat down cross-legged and drew the sweet smell of damp terrain and decaying plants deep into her lungs. The chatter of a couple nearby tried to invade her thoughts, but she focused on her breathing, as Nevvis had taught her, closed her eyes, and reached out with her mind. Getting to the brakeal this time should be much easier. She had already been there in person once.