This was too easy.
He dropped his camouflage again and gripped the door handle. It gave a soft click. He slipped inside, closing the door behind him.
An ancient, dying human—the Chairman—lay in a life support bed, his papery skin a sickly yellow, his eyes sunken in their sockets. A nurse in loose blue clothing sat asleep in her chair at a desk covered with medical monitors. He disabled the panic button near the Chairman’s hand and crept up behind her. Young. Attractive. A pity. He slammed his barriers as tightly shut as he could and delivered a fast and far more merciful death than the Chairman would have ordered for her.
He gripped the back of her chair while the death shock passed, then turned to face the bed to find the Chairman’s eyes glittering at him.
“Thank you for saving me the trouble,” he said, his voice thin and quavery, barely above a whisper. “Though it’s too bad. She was one of the prettier ones. I assume my call button won’t work?”
Farryn inclined his head. A few strands of hair fell into his face. It had grown out enough to tie back, but not long enough to knot. He pushed the hair back behind his ear. What knot could he put in it now? He was outcaste.
“Who are you, anyway? You don’t look like Triads. And how did you get in here?”
“You do not recognize me?” Farryn camouflaged, then dropped it a moment later. He took a step closer to the bed. “I think I should be insulted.”
The Chairman’s rheumy eyes went wide. “You’re Tolari.”
“At your service.” And since he wore black clothing, that was particularly apt.
“What do you want?”
“Ah, but I would ask the same question of you. What do you want?”
The ancient human sighed. “They say it’s useless to try to lie to a Tolari. Very well then. What do I want? I want to live. I think you Tolari have the means to help me do that.”
“Do we now?”
“Don’t play with me.”
Farryn chuckled. “No, I do not intend to play with you. In fact, I am here to give you what you want.” He took another step closer to the bed, pulling a small crystal box from a pocket.
The Chairman’s eyes glued to the box. “Is that what your Sural gave Marianne Woolsey?”
His lip curled into a sneer of its own volition. “He is not my Sural. But yes. It is.”
“It took ten years off her apparent age. I need a hell of a lot more than that.”
“As old as you are, it will take a few days, but you will be young again.”
The Chairman expelled a long breath, his hand scrabbling at the edge of the bed toward Farryn. “Give it to me.”
“I suggest you summon witnesses before your appearance changes overmuch.”
“Just give it to me!”
“Have patience.” He pried the lid off the crystal box and tipped its contents into his palm. “This will give you three hundred standard years.”
“Three hundred!”
“Be calm. As I understand it, too much excitement is bad for you.” He moved the rest of the way to the bed and stood near the Chairman’s head. “You will fall unconscious. Were you younger, you would remain unconscious for perhaps half a day. As you are, I cannot say how long.”
“Understood. Give it to me!”
“You are quite certain you want this?”
“Give it to me!” the old man hissed.
“Remember to summon witnesses when you awaken.” He dropped the tiny cube into the gaping, toothless mouth, and the Chairman fell unconscious. Farryn probed him. He was no apothecary, but he thought the man would survive—and live to make the Sural’s task that much more difficult, if becoming an empath without knowing it did not first drive the human mad.
Tolar cast him out for one crime after all the good he had done. Tolar would regret it.
End of Book Three
Other Titles by Christie Meierz
The Marann (Tales of Tolari Space ~ Book 1)
Winner of the 2013 PRISM Award for Futuristic Romance.
The Marann recounts one woman’s journey through loneliness, shattering revelations, and attempted assassination on a world where everyone can read her emotions.
Marianne Woolsey is a high school Spanish teacher in rural Iowa, when Earth Central Command decides her linguistic talents would be better exercised if she spent 26 years teaching the daughter and heir of an alien ruler on a planet 24 light years from Earth. Now she’s alone on a planet of aliens so humanlike that she has to keep telling herself her student’s noble father is just her boss.
Handsome—and deadly—the Sural has ruled his province and led his planet far longer than he can admit to his daughter’s human tutor. He hides much more from the space-faring races of the Trade Alliance than he is willing to reveal. What he doesn’t want Central Command to know, he has to conceal from Marianne, but Marianne is concealing her own secrets from him—and as an empath, he knows it.
This first novel in the Tales of Tolari Space series explores what could happen when you put an unsuspecting human on a planet full of empaths.
Into Tolari Space ~ The First Contact Stories
First Contact
Earth’s Ambassador to Tolar, Smithton Adler Russell, gets a call in the middle of the night.
Field Work
The ruler of Monralar is ambitious, ruthless, and out to unseat the Sural. Can one laborer put a stop to the Monral’s scheme before Tolar’s advanced technology is exposed to the Trade Alliance?
Daughters of Suralia (Tales of Tolari Space ~ Book 2)
Three women, two planets, and a whale.
For Marianne Woolsey, linguist and tutor, being empathically bonded to the leader of the Tolari turns out to be a bed of roses—complete with thorns. Especially thorns.
With diplomatic relations severed and humans kicked out of Tolari space, the Earth Fleet ship Alexander is gone… for now… but Earth Central Command hasn’t given up trying to get Marianne back. As she struggles with surprises, nightmares, and a bond-partner who can’t be tamed, she just wants to figure out where she fits in a society that isn’t quite human.
Laura Howard, the Admiral’s widow, only desires to be left in peace to gather the fragments of a shattered heart, but Central Command has plans for her, too.
Meanwhile, the Sural’s apothecary is a serene and gifted healer who knows what—and who—she wants. A past tragedy led the man she loves to wall off his heart, but in her pursuit of him, she has an unexpected ally—in the depths of Tolar’s oceans.
About the Author
Award-winning author Christie Meierz writes space opera and science fiction romance set on a world of empaths at the edge of a dystopic Earth empire. Her published works include her PRISM award-winning novel, The Marann, its sequel, Daughters of Suralia, and two prequel short stories, Into Tolari Space ~ The First Contact Stories. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America, spent 10 years raising sheep in upstate New York, and has been declared capable of learning Yup’ik.
Christie now lives in Pittsburgh with her mathematician husband and an assortment of stuffies. When she’s not writing, she writes about writing on her blog, Meierz Musings, Facebook, where she welcomes comments and friend requests, and her Facebook Author Page, or you can visit her website at http://christiemeierz.com.
Coyote is always out there waiting,
And Coyote is always hungry.
Navajo saying
The Fall Page 33
