Outcaste

by Fletcher DeLancey

  “Don’t be embarrassed. It was an understandable mistake.” She shot Lhyn a smile. “But I’m going to tell Mother and Sharro about it.”

  “‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ she says while planning to embarrass me.” Lhyn’s amusement faded to sympathy. “That sounds like a difficult loss.”

  “It was. I think Sharro was right, though. His road was always dark. I used to fantasize that I could have saved him, but . . .” With a shrug, she turned back to the choppy waters. “In the end, we can only save ourselves.”

  “We can’t always do it alone. Sometimes we need people to save us. I would add to your thought and say, in the end, we’re the ones who have to ask for help.”

  “Not always. I didn’t.”

  “You put yourself in a situation that you knew would land you in prison, because it was better than where you were at the time. Doesn’t that sound like a cry for help?”

  She glanced over to find Lhyn watching her with an expression as open as her emotions. “I never thought of it that way.”

  “Lanaril did.”

  “She told you that?”

  “No. But I know her, and I know what she responds to. She heard you.”

  She turned this new view over in her mind, examining it from all angles. “Salomen did, too, didn’t she? From our very first meeting in the healing center.”

  “Salomen doesn’t have Lanaril’s training or experience. But she has a brilliant mind and an instinctive understanding of people.” Lhyn gave a short laugh and added, “Including aliens. I don’t think she could have verbalized what she saw in you, but you didn’t make sense to her and she wasn’t going to rest until she understood why.”

  “So I was a puzzle to solve.”

  “In the beginning, yes, I think so. But in the course of solving the puzzle, she realized you needed help. So she brought Lanaril to you.”

  Rahel stared at the bay and thought about the many people who had stood behind her. Twice in her life she had been an outcaste, and both times she had pulled herself out only through the kindness of others.

  “It’s so unfair,” she said. “When I needed help, it came to me. But when Mouse needed it, he got nothing. Except this.” She waved a hand toward the water.

  “Did he ask?”

  “No, just the opposite. I tried, but he pushed me away. Even Sharro couldn’t help him.”

  “Then he wasn’t ready.”

  She pulled up one leg and set her boot heel on the planks. “I don’t know that he ever would have been. We never got the chance to find out. I think about him so often—about what he’d be doing right now. I just can’t see it. He wouldn’t have come to Blacksun with me when Shantu was elected Prime Warrior. I used to think I could take him with me, but it would never have worked.”

  “Because Whitesun was his home?”

  Yes, but Whitesun was her home, too, and always would be. Yet she had left because her life’s path had taken her away. Mouse would not have accepted a path that took him anywhere else.

  “Whitesun was where he felt safe. He knew every alley, every trash bin, all the right people and places. He was in control here—” She stopped as the understanding hit. “Fahla.”

  “What is it?”

  “That was what he was always afraid of. That was why he never wanted anything to change. He never had any control until he came here. Sharro kept trying to tell me, but I didn’t understand until now . . . and you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

  Lhyn shook her head. “No, but as a person who makes her living solving puzzles, I recognize the look on your face. How long have you been trying to solve this one?”

  “Nineteen cycles. Mouse killed himself after he was empathically raped.” She nodded at Lhyn’s expression. “The rapist tried to get me, too, but he underestimated what a terrified girl could do with a stave. He only had his claws in me for a few pipticks. But Mouse . . . Mouse lost everything. He built his life around finding and keeping what little control he could, and that rapist took all of it. I always thought he killed himself because he couldn’t live with betraying me, even knowing it wasn’t his fault. But that wasn’t it. Or maybe it was, but not the biggest part. What killed him was losing the one thing he valued most of all. I couldn’t see that until I lost the same thing.”

  “Control,” Lhyn said. “I don’t know your history, but I understand that very well.”

  She did. It flowed off her skin, accompanied by a sharp edge of anger and remembered fear.

  “Lanaril said you had a story.”

  “It’s not a story for here or now. I’d rather hear yours. So you understand Mouse now because of your trauma shock?”

  She nodded, tucking a windblown lock of hair behind her ear. “I nearly followed his example. Right here. I had no control left in my life and no idea how to fix it.” It was all so clear now. She didn’t know how she had missed it before.

  “And when you have no control and no visible end to the suffering, death looks like the only way out.”

  “You do understand.”

  “I wish I didn’t. But yes, I do. I’m sorry that Mouse never found another path, the way you did.”

  Rahel marveled at the fact that she was sitting at the end of Dock One with an alien who somehow saw through Mouse without ever meeting him. In that moment, she wanted Lhyn to know. Who better to tell his story to than a scholar who recorded such things?

  It had been so hard to talk about him in the healing center. Now, as the sound and taste of Wildwind Bay washed over her, she spoke without pain.

  Lhyn listened closely, her every emotion clear for the sensing. “You both thought you were misfits,” she said when Rahel finished. “I’ve studied cultures in every corner of the known galaxy. There are some constants. One of them is that it’s always the misfits who change the world.”

  “I wish Mouse had lived long enough to change the world.”

  “He lived long enough to change you.”

  “So I’m going to change the world?”

  “Don’t you think you already have?”

  Rahel stared at the patterns the breeze drew on the waters. “I’m cold enough,” she said, closing her collar. “Shall we get a rajalta?”

  “Oh, yes!” Lhyn unfolded her long body and was quickly on her feet. “I need to take some of that back with me. Ekatya is going to think she Returned and met Fahla. Even I love that stuff, and I’m not a snob about shannel the way she is.”

  Rahel rested a hand on the sleeve of Lhyn’s jacket. “Thank you. For listening.”

  “Thank you for telling me. And Rahel—another word for misfit is unique.”

  The next day, at Ravenel’s insistence, Rahel took Lhyn to visit her workshop. Of course Lhyn had a hundred questions, each asked with genuine interest. Ravenel was delighted to have such a focused audience, and once again Rahel found herself watching from the walls. Eventually she began nosing around the completed sculptures, tagged and set aside on special shelving.

  “Oh, how beautiful!” Lhyn said from across the room.

  Rahel looked over to find her mother and Lhyn peering at something beneath a cloth.

  “It’s impossible to be wrong in the visual interpretation,” Lhyn added. “There’s no right way to see it, so I can’t help you with that. Besides, this is gorgeous. Don’t change a thing.”

  Rahel made her way across the room, only to see her mother cover the object once more. “Don’t I get a look?”

  “No. It’s not done. I don’t want to show you until it’s done.”

  “But you’ll show her?”

  “It’s based on a Gaian myth. Since we’re opening up trade with the Protectorate, I want to expand my offerings. Lhyn knows what this should be, but you won’t be any help.”

  Lhyn was trying to look unconcerned, but her enjoyment could have been sensed from Dock One.

  “So I’m not going to see this until you show it to me on our first quantum com call?”

  “Art is done when it’s done,”
Ravenel said archly.

  Lhyn’s enjoyment grew.

  “She’s not helping your cause.” Rahel pointed at Lhyn. “How do you Gaians keep secrets, anyway?”

  Lhyn burst into laughter. “Someday I’ll tell you how Ekatya and I kept the same secret from each other for a cycle and a half. We do just fine. It’s you Alseans we have to worry about.”

  After Lhyn flew back, Rahel spent her last days in Whitesun visiting every favorite haunt and drinking more rajalta than was good for her. On their final night, she took her mother and Sharro to Jacon’s new restaurant, where they were treated to the best table and a fabulous meal that he would not let them pay for. He joined them for part of it and regaled them with stories of Rahel learning to swim.

  “Mouse told her that the ideal dive doesn’t make a splash with the feet,” Jacon said. “She was obsessed with it. She dived and dived and dived, and every time she would come up and say, ‘Well?’ and Mouse would purse his lips and say, ‘Almost.’ And then she’d dive again.”

  “I had to get it right,” Rahel said.

  Jacon made a snorting noise. “Yes, but the best part is that you got it right on the third or fourth try. Mouse was just hooking you. And you bit the hook, sister! You must have dived a hundred times that day!”

  Rahel shook her head as the others roared with laughter.

  The best explorers were the ones who wanted to come home, Sharro had said.

  She would always want to come home to this.

  75

  PHOENIX

  Sharro and Ravenel flew back to Blacksun with her. The next morning, she donned her dress uniform and gave her bag to one of Salomen’s Guards, who would deliver it to the Protectorate shuttle. She couldn’t carry it herself, because her departure was global news. There would be speeches and palm touches, and appearances had to be preserved.

  Her heart nearly stopped when she was brought onto a temporary stage and saw Lancer Tal at the podium. Their eyes met for one brief moment, and that was all it took to know that she could not apologize today. Though Lancer Tal’s expression showed nothing, her gaze was pure ice.

  She stood through the speech and did not hear more than three words of it. Then Salomen took the podium, and that was easier.

  Thank Fahla, no one expected her to give a speech. But she did have to take a very public leave of the Lancer and Bondlancer.

  She straightened her shoulders and walked across the stage to stand in front of Lancer Tal for the first time. Vidcams swarmed around as she brought both fists against her sternum and bowed her head, letting several pipticks pass before raising it again. It was a sign of deep respect, and the only way she could apologize in this moment.

  “My Lancer, I will represent Alsea to the best of my ability,” she said.

  Lancer Tal looked as if it might break her jaw to speak. She gave Rahel a brusque nod and said, “I know you will, First Guard. Safe journey, and may Fahla fly with you.”

  It was a relief to turn from her to the far more welcoming face of Salomen. She knew Salomen was expecting the normal one-handed salute owed an oath holder, but that was not enough. Instead she dropped to one knee, her forearm draped over the other and her head bowed low.

  After a pause, a familiar hand appeared in her vision. She took it and allowed herself to be drawn upright.

  “Bondlancer Opah, there are no words to express my gratitude for this opportunity.” Rahel lifted their joined hands. “Know from this that you have my loyalty forever, and my service for as long as you wish it.”

  “Your loyalty, once given, is unshakeable,” Salomen said. “I am fortunate to hold it, and Captain Serrado is fortunate to benefit from it.” She leaned forward and murmured, “I expect regular quantum com calls, or I’ll tell the world that our first space explorer is terrified of hairy watchers.”

  Rahel choked down her laughter and squeezed their hands together. “I’ll miss you.”

  There was an aching blend of joy and sorrow in Salomen’s touch. “As will I. Rahel—spread your wings and fly.”

  Rahel stepped off the stage and walked past a line of Guards to the last people standing in front of the shuttle’s ramp. Captain Serrado waited there, along with Lhyn Rivers, but she had eyes only for the two women in full-length, formal capes. She held up both hands to Sharro and thought it would be a miracle if she got through this without embarrassing herself.

  “Sharro,” she managed through a tight throat. “Take good care of my mother.”

  Sharro met her palms and sucked in a breath, her pride and happiness sparking along her skin. “You know I will.”

  “What?” Ravenel said from beside her. “She’s the one carrying our child. I’m supposed to be taking care of her.”

  Sharro and Rahel exchanged a look that said everything.

  “Right,” Ravenel said. “I see that. Yes, Sharro is the comfort giver, but I do have practice being a mother. Remember?”

  Rahel grinned at her, then looked back at Sharro. “See all the vidcams?”

  “Yes . . . ?”

  “Want to start a revolution?”

  Sharro pretended to think, but her dimple had already appeared. “Now is a good time for one.”

  With a triumphant joy that erased the tightness in her throat, Rahel went into her arms in a very public warmron, shattering a taboo in front of the whole world.

  “Oh, good Fahla,” Ravenel said. “You two.”

  Sharro held her tightly. “My fierce warrior. Who would ever have thought an outcaste would be the first Alsean explorer in space?”

  “Mouse would be proud, wouldn’t he?”

  “He would have a grin from here to Whitesun.” She kissed Rahel’s cheek and whispered, “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” Rahel clung to her, absorbing the clear truth of that emotion, then stepped back and turned to her mother. “And the other instruction I had was, take good care of Sharro. And the little Mouse.”

  “You are not calling him the little Mouse.”

  “Until he grows bigger than me, yes, I am. You gave him Mouse’s name, you get to live with the consequences.”

  Ravenel reached up to cup her face in both hands. “My heart feels whole for the first time since Brasalara, seeing you like this. This is what you were meant to be.” The decision came through her skin right before she said, “Shek it all. Let’s start a revolution.”

  Rahel laughed as they wrapped each other in a warmron. “I love you so much. Thank you for not giving up on me.”

  “I never have and I never will.”

  “I’ll try to be here for the little Mouse’s birth. I can’t guarantee anything.”

  “I know. If you don’t make it, we’ll use that pad and have the first Alsean-galactic birth transmission.”

  It was hard to let her go. When she managed it, her mother bent to the satchel sitting on the ground beside her and pulled out a wrapped package that required two hands to hold.

  “Art is done when it’s done. Open it on the ship,” she said.

  “I will. I’ll call soon.”

  Lhyn was smiling at her when she turned. “Ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Captain Serrado led the way onto the shuttle and took the copilot’s chair. Lhyn motioned Rahel into a seat and fastened the harness for her, then took the seat on the other side of the central aisle.

  The shuttle rose into the air a few ticks later, its flight smooth and sure. Rahel pressed her nose to the window, watching the State House, then Blacksun, then Blacksun Basin shrink beneath her.

  Higher and higher they flew, until clouds concealed the landscape and she could see no more. She turned her attention to the package in her lap. Her mother had said to open it on the ship, but she could not wait.

  The protective layers fell away to reveal a sculpture of a bird, its body the size of her fist while its wings stretched twice that length. It looked as if it had been frozen in the act of leaping into flight, its wings caught at the very beginning of the do
wnbeat. One taloned foot was already in the air, while the other was connected to the base of the sculpture by the points of three toes. The effect was that of weightlessness, as if the bird needed just one more piptick to separate from its base and fly free.

  But what made Rahel’s breath catch was the wings. They were a blend of feathers and flames, painted in every shade of fire from red through orange to yellow and even, in a few places, the white of a spark that had not yet found something to burn.

  Her vision blurred as she stared at it and remembered Salomen’s last words.

  “Oh, wow.” Lhyn leaned out of her seat. “She hadn’t painted it when I saw it. That turned out magnificently. Your mother is a creative genius.”

  Rahel blinked back the tears. “She is. And she’s sending me a message.”

  “I know,” Lhyn said softly. “It’s a beautiful message.”

  When Rahel could see again, the sky outside her window was a blue so dark it was almost violet. Below, the formerly solid cloud layer was now visible as enormous but distant cloud masses that did not obscure all of the land beneath. She had not realized they would be flying southwest to meet the Phoenix, but there was the unmistakable outline of Wildwind Bay.

  She steadied the sculpture on her lap with one hand and touched the other to the window, surprisingly warm despite the freezing air outside.

  “A long time ago, Mouse told me I would grow up to be Lead Guard for the Lancer.” She looked over at Lhyn. “But I became something even better: a phoenix for the Bondlancer.”

  Lhyn’s smile came with a wash of understanding.

  For the next several ticks, Rahel alternated between watching the sky turn from violet to black and staring at the flaming phoenix in her lap. Her practical side said to keep looking out the window, because she would have only one first ascent into orbit, but she could not keep her eyes off her mother’s message.

  Lhyn tapped her shoulder. “Look up ahead, Little Phoenix.” She indicated the front of the shuttle.

  Rahel turned to see a shining silver ship hanging like a great jewel against the blackness of space. Her future home.

  Her future.

  She was a phoenix, rising from the ashes. Salomen had said to spread her wings and fly, and so she was—all the way to the stars.