B00CH3ARG0 EBOK

by Christie Meierz

  “That’s true,” Marianne replied, wondering where Thela was going with this.

  “Does that mean you have never heard a real performance?”

  Marianne lifted her eyebrows in surprise. That was unexpected. “I’ve heard Tolari musicians play, if that’s what you mean. I’ve been to all the seasonal festivals since I came here.”

  Thela shook her head. “Some of us have ... a gift. If you were human when you listened to one of us play, you might not have been able to feel it.”

  “Feel it? What do you mean?”

  Thela smiled and oozed eager delight. “Close your eyes and listen.”

  Marianne leaned back against the gazebo and closed her eyes, as Thela began to play a traditional Tolari melody. The melody repeated, with variations, and began to take shape and form and emotion, swirling and dipping around them in triumph. Then it changed, becoming sad and desolate, and faded away. Marianne opened her eyes and realized her cheeks were wet with tears.

  “Oh my.” She breathed a sigh, wiping her face.

  Thela cradled her instrument and gave a bow. “My father is of the science caste, but I will be joining the musician caste when I come of age.”

  Marianne nodded, speechless. Then the Sural burst into view beside her. Marianne started. She’d been so overcome she hadn’t felt his approach.

  “High one!” Thela exclaimed, and bowed very low.

  “Very compelling, child,” he said. “Your father did not exaggerate when he described you as the musician caste’s next great leader.”

  Thela’s eyes went huge. “You honor me, high one.”

  “You honor me with your gift,” he answered, chuckling. “It is time for the midday meal. Come, join the Marann and me at my table.”

  Thela glowed, almost unable to speak. “Yes, high one,” she managed to say.

  He gave the girl a warm smile and turned to Marianne. “Beloved,” he greeted her, as the three of them began walking back to the keep.

  Marianne tucked a hand under his arm, still moved by what she had just experienced.

  He smiled and patted her hand. “The musician’s gift can be overwhelming. The first time I heard a performance by a great musician – it was Corvestal, at the height of his ability – I had much the same reaction. He was a great talent of the time, and she, a child just beginning to develop her gift, is nearly as powerful. She has many years ahead of her to become much more than she is now. Her name will be remembered.”

  Pride leaked out of Thela, washing over Marianne’s senses.

  “Is her father disappointed that his heir doesn’t follow him into the science caste?” Marianne wondered aloud, finding her voice again.

  “Oh no, high one,” Thela answered.

  “Your father is very proud of you,” the Sural said, “as he should be.”

  Thela radiated happiness. “I must see to my instrument,” she said, scurrying off in the direction of the guest wing. When she returned to the refectory, the Sural motioned for her to take a seat at his table. Marianne sensed a flash of pride radiating from one of the scientists nearby. From the physical resemblance, she assumed the man must be Thela’s father.

  The Sural indicated the seat beside Kyza and struck up a conversation with the climatologist’s daughter, asking questions about her music training. In spite of her awe, she was soon chattering freely about composers and technique. Kyza, on the other hand, was less impressed by which composers’ music she could play and more interested in discovering if Thela knew anything about politics or history. The Sural let his daughter take over the conversation, a small smile flickering on his face.

  Marianne grinned to herself, her eyes wandering across the table. Thela was picking at her food as Kyza chatted.

  The Sural followed her gaze. “Thela is mindful of this evening’s performance, I believe,” he said.

  Thela nodded. “I do not perform well when weighed down by food.”

  “I knew musicians on Earth who couldn’t eat before performing,” Marianne said. “For them, it was usually performance anxiety, but ... that’s not what it is for you, is it?”

  “Oh no, I love playing in front of other people,” Thela replied with enthusiasm. “But heavy food takes away energy I need for the performance.” She paused, then asked, “High one, what is human music like?”

  Marianne blew a loud sigh. “I don’t know enough about Tolari music to compare it for you. Perhaps you should ask the Sural’s apothecary. She was exposed to human music when the first humans came here.”

  Cena, seated at another table with Storaas and another of Kyza’s tutors, came over at the Sural’s signal. She glanced at Marianne when she heard the question, but Marianne only shrugged. Cena looked up past the girl for a long moment, then said slowly, “It is ... evocative. Human musical instruments are said to be much like ours, and their musicians reach a high level of technical ability, often using a large number of instruments playing together to produce a magnificent cascade of sound. They do not have the gift you display in such abundance, but they achieve a shadow of it with their combined skill.”

  “I should like to hear that,” Thela said, a wistful note in her voice.

  “It could be arranged,” the Sural murmured.

  Marianne’s eyes darted to his. He returned her shocked gaze with an indecipherable expression, and then focused his attention on his meal. She squinted at him, deciding that to pursue the subject in a public area would get her nowhere. She’d see what she could get out of him later.

  * * *

  The sun was hanging low in the sky when ‘later’ arrived. Marianne was draped across a gazebo bench, paging through poetry on her library tablet, when the Sural finally entered the garden. He burst into view in front of her.

  “Why do you camouflage so much?” she asked.

  He lifted his eyebrows and grinned. “Prudence.”

  She snorted and sat up to make room for him. “So how did you manage to acquire recordings of Earth music?”

  “From Admiral Howard’s ship.” His face was bland as he dropped onto the bench beside her.

  “And the Alexander just gave you – how much – human music? Willingly?”

  “Their entire archive, and no.”

  “You stole it?” she exclaimed, aghast.

  He raised his eyebrows, looking offended. “The Alexander and everything in it was forfeit the moment they violated my interdict. My engineers copied their archives, and I allowed the crew to leave with their ship intact.” He paused and cocked his head. “Would you have been pleased had I destroyed it? I refrained out of respect for the innocents on board.”

  She deflated. “Like Laura.”

  “Yes, beloved.”

  “But that was tens of days ago. What took so long?”

  “Humans are very clever with information storage. It took time for my engineers to decrypt the archives and develop algorithms to make them compatible with our technology. However, now that the conversion is complete, it is a simple task to access the music archive from your library tablet.”

  Her delighted coo attracted the attention of the flutters.

  * * *

  The Sural’s audience room was crowded to capacity for Thela’s concert that evening. Scientists, stronghold staff, and even ordinary city inhabitants were among the crowd that filled the chamber. Only a small area in front of the Sural’s dais was clear. In the middle of that area, facing the Sural, was Thela.

  Her face glowed with elation.

  Marianne gave the girl a warm smile. A natural performer, she thought, in love with being the center of attention. The Sural raised a hand, and a hush settled over the audience. He nodded at Thela to begin.

  The first piece was complex and difficult, played without calling upon her gift. Marianne’s attention drifted, although she appreciated the technical ability Thela displayed. Next, the girl played an elegant but simple piece, with the lightest touch of her gift to bring it alive. Demonstrating subtlety?

  Beside h
er, the Sural was thrumming with pleasure.

  She was unprepared for what came next: a piece of virtuosic complexity, with as much power as Thela was capable of bringing to it. Marianne forgot where she was, unaware of herself or her surroundings, as the music wove in her and through her and around her in a way that reminded her of bonding. The music reached heights of joy and depths of despair that she wouldn’t have believed a child so young could know. She was so transported that she was barely aware when the piece ended.

  “Beloved.” The Sural’s gentle whisper brought her back to the audience room. He smiled at her. “You were far away.”

  She wiped the tears streaming down her face and turned her attention back to Thela, who was standing exhausted in front of them. Just as the Sural was about to speak, the girl swayed and staggered. He sprang from the dais to catch her before she could fall.

  “Take her to her quarters to rest,” he ordered a servant.

  * * *

  The Sural watched as a servant led the fatigued young Thela away, her father following in their wake. Then he sat on the edge of the dais next to Marianne as a hushed murmur of conversation began among the concert-goers.

  “Will she be all right, beloved?” she asked.

  He nodded. “That is the price of her gift,” he answered in a low voice, “but yes, she will recover. She pushed herself to the limit of her ability. You see the result.”

  He turned to the room and raised a hand to dismiss the guests. As they began to drift toward the doorway, he assisted Marianne from the dais.

  “Does that always happen?” she asked.

  He kept a firm grip on her arm as she stepped down – she sometimes failed to take account of her body’s shift in balance, and he would not allow her to fall if that should happen. “No, her fatigue is a mistake of the very young and inexperienced. As an adult, she will be able to perform at that level without exhausting herself.”

  She shot him a questioning glance as she headed for her quarters, but he shook his head and didn’t immediately follow her, accompanying Kyza instead. Confused emotions were reaching him through the parental bond he shared with his daughter; she would need his help sorting through them. He’d not expected Thela to have such empathic depth at such a young age, or he would have kept Kyza away from the performance.

  He seated himself comfortably on the veranda of Kyza’s quarters, where he could watch the moon rise over the far mountains. She climbed into his lap, curling up and nestling against his chest. He put his arms around her, reaching through the bond. She was even more profoundly stirred by the music than he thought – some of the emotions she had experienced during the performance troubled her deeply. He wrapped her senses up in his and helped her to quiet and calm her emotions. The moon was visibly farther up in the sky before she was soothed enough to drop into slumber.

  He waited until she was in a deep sleep before he rose from his seat. Carefully, he carried her to her mat and laid her on it, covering her with a light blanket. He watched for a moment to be certain she would remain asleep.

  It had been too long since he had communed with Kyza. He had allowed the poor excuse of a busy schedule to distract him from his responsibility to her. With an almost inaudible sigh, he resolved to spend more time with his daughter and left her to make his way to Marianne’s quarters. His beloved was already asleep, but she stirred when he slipped under her blanket.

  She mumbled something and molded herself against his side. Then her eyes slitted open, small whirls of jealous suspicion lighting up in her. “Where were you?”

  “Kyza needed me,” he murmured, unperturbed. “She was disturbed by the performance, and it had been too long since I last communed with my daughter.”

  Surprise washed away the sleepiness and the suspicion, and she shifted onto her side to look at him. Moonlight lit her face. “Is she all right?”

  “She will be. It may take a little time for her to become settled and peaceful again.”

  She ran a finger over his lips. “You’re a good father,” she whispered. He smiled under her finger. She leaned over to kiss and nibble his chin. “Cena says that we can resume behaving like ‘digger squid in warm water.’”

  He pulled her more tightly against him. “So she informed me.”

  She pouted. “I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

  He grinned and set himself the task of erasing her pout.

  Chapter Seven

  The Sural woke at first light. After extricating himself from the tangle of arms and legs without disturbing Marianne, he washed, threw on a clean robe and trousers, and mentally reviewed the upcoming day while a servant brushed and knotted his hair. When his hair was presentable, he padded into the sitting room, planning to start on his morning reports.

  The flashing light of Marianne’s comms unit met him.

  He took a seat at her desk, blocking the light from her view, and pondered. After banning humans from Tolari space, he’d offered to have the unit removed to his guards’ communications plexus. She’d resisted the idea, saying she wanted to have “as much of home” about her as she could. It did seem to give her comfort, even after the unfortunate incident with Admiral Howard, so he had not pressed her to remove it.

  Tapping a panel on the comms unit got him a notification that a long-range communication was incoming. He stifled a snort and checked his tablet to confirm it. The signal originated from the human-maintained space station at the star they called Epsilon Indi. He rubbed his chin and nodded. They were staying out of Tolari space this time. That was promising.

  After signaling a guard to close the door to the sleeping room, he accepted the connection. The very surprised face of a human male appeared on the monitor. The Sural waited. Had this human been briefed on the protocol of communicating with a member of the Tolari ruling caste?

  “Sir,” the man said, in English.

  Apparently not.

  The Sural raised an eyebrow. Earth didn’t know that Marianne was a member of the ruling caste, but they knew she was “married” to their leader. Either this human had never been briefed – which he should have been, given the circumstances – or he was pretending not to have been. Either case was an insult.

  The human cleared his throat and began again, in heavily accented Tolari. The Sural let his other eyebrow join the first. “High one, my name is Michael Gould. I call on behalf of Earth Central Command. We attempt to contact Citizen Marianne Woolsey, but she fails to answer her comms. Will you honor us, high one, and inform us where she is?”

  The Sural waited, keeping the amusement off his face. As the silence stretched, comprehension dawned on the human’s face. The man swallowed and remained silent, lips pressed into a thin line.

  The Sural finally broke his silence. “Speak,” he commanded.

  The man’s face took on an almost nauseated expression. The Sural suppressed more amusement. Most humans were not accustomed to waiting for permission to speak.

  “High one,” Gould said, carefully, “you honor me. I request permission to have conversation with Citizen Marianne Woolsey.”

  “No.”

  Gould swallowed again and looked up past the screen, at some unseen prompter.

  “Central Command needs proof of life, high—”

  “You need what?” He let menace into his voice.

  Gould backpedaled. “We are concerned for her. Her family is concerned for her. They want to give her their love and best wishes.”

  “Marianne has no living relations.”

  Gould went pale. “High one, I—”

  “—merely speak the words you are being told to speak.”

  The man gave an almost imperceptible nod and swallowed hard.

  “You think it appropriate to address the ruler of Tolar by parroting the words of another?”

  He paled a little more, went still, and straightened, looking directly into the monitor. “No, high one, I do not,” he said in a firmer voice.

  The Sural allowed himself a thin
smile. This human had some courage after all.

  “High one, if Marianne lives—”

  “If?” He let danger creep into his voice again.

  “—why may I not speak to her?”

  The Sural was silent for a long moment. The man fidgeted and tapped his thumbs together. When he stopped fidgeting, the Sural asked, “Are you aware what part of the day it is in my stronghold? My wife,” he used the English word, “is expecting a child. I will not disturb her rest.”

  Gould punched a button on his desk and glanced at his monitor once – then again – then took a deep breath. “High one, I offer—”

  The monitor went blank. The Sural rubbed his chin. He did not think the man Michael Gould had broken the connection.

  * * *

  Michael Gould swallowed. This just wasn’t a good day. First the Sural. Now the hard-nosed new head of field ops. Rumor had it she was so devoted to Central Command that she’d sacrificed her husband’s best friend without a second thought. I’ll bet her marriage didn’t last long after that.

  “The Sural uses silence like a weapon,” Adeline Russell said, her face on the comms monitor a perfect mask. Blonde and brown-eyed, his new supervisor was beautiful, but her smiles held only arctic chill. “You can’t let yourself be rattled by Tolari stares.”

  “Ma’am, I need authorization to speak more freely. He knew when I wasn’t, and he considered it an insult. You know what happens when he’s insulted.”

  “Then don’t insult him. He played you like a violin, Gould. You have to be less afraid to die.”

  Easy for her to say. “Ma’am, this isn’t going to work.”

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion. You know the plan. The package is on its way from Tau Ceti. Whoever – or whatever – is protecting the Tolari won’t hurt non-combatants, so no matter what, you’ll still have Woolsey. Be there at two hours past local noon.”

  Gould hid a sigh. “Yes, ma’am.”

  * * *

  Marianne didn’t like what she was feeling.

  It wasn’t coming from her. Shortly after he left the midday meal, supposedly on his way to the first meeting of an afternoon full of them, the Sural began seething over something. She’d grown accustomed to his usual parade of emotion as he went about his day: interest or excitement, surprise, annoyance and frustration, even boredom. Outraged anger – that was a first. And he didn’t even try to suppress it. Something was going on.