Oh, clever, you can tell I am a what. I’m friendly. What are you?
Against the edges of his mind he could feel a gentle probing, not intrusive, just—there. Ah I see, Sholan, male, called Shaidan. Hello, Shaidan. Now we have been introduced you don’t need to touch the wall. I can hear you if you send thoughts in my direction.
Like ZSADHI can hear our voices?
Like that, yes, but infinitely more complex.
Who are you?
I have no name as you know it.
You must have a name, every living thing has . . . a name. You’re not alive, are you?
I have a name you can call me, the thought offered. Call me Unity for I unite people.
Unity. Who are you uniting me with?
Me. I’ve watched you for several days now, with your brothers and sisters in the nursery, and swimming in the pool. Even in the courtyard when you go out unseen at night to watch the passersby. I am curious. Why do you sit and watch them?
Shaidan let his hand fall to his side, then slid down the wall to sit cross-legged at the foot of it, his head resting back against the intricately carved wood. It’s complicated, he sent. No one really understands us except each other. We’re ten, but we’re also only around one year old. We want to play like kittle kids, then we want to learn grownup stuff. When we were birthed, we only had grownups for company, so we never got to be real kids until a few weeks ago when we came here. Only there aren’t any kids like us. He shrugged. Watching the grownups here reminds me they can be friendly and kind, unlike the ones we knew originally.
I see. You’re wise for one so young. You do need to learn grownup things, sent Unity. Soon you will have to bear responsibility for important matters beyond your years. I wish it wasn’t so, but I’ve seen it.
Seen it? How can you have seen what hasn’t yet happened? demanded the cub.
It’s what I do, what I am. Bringing people and events together. No, it won’t happen because you know me, came the swift reply to the cub’s barely formed thought. It will come anyway. I can just help you be ready for it.
How can you do that?
You need to learn certain skills you don’t yet have. You need to find out who has those skills first of all. Then you need to persuade them to teach you.
How am I supposed to do that? Grownups just say No, and Because I say so, or You’re too young, to me.
I’ll help you with that once you find out who can teach you.
Again, Shaidan was intrigued and curious. What do I need to learn, and why?
You need to learn to protect yourself because a time will come with danger for you that you cannot avoid. Training now will help you succeed in your task.
What task?
I cannot tell you that, only you will know what your task is when the time comes, young Sholan. Would you like to see a people like yours practicing the arts of war?
Yes! Show me, he said as flickering images of black-furred people began to play inside his head.
U’Churians they are, like you once, but not since many thousand years now. Then you had common ancestors. They fight like your people. Watch and learn how they can use anything as a weapon.
* * *
A little later, Shaidan headed out to the lower levels of the Palace, this time to just behind the public temple where the entrance corridor for supplies for the Palace food stores came in. Again, staying in the shadows, he crept down the corridor to the courtyard outside. At this time of night he knew he was pretty safe as there were unlikely to be any deliveries until morning. The exercise yard would be mostly empty as any night drills took place outside the city walls.
Nowadays, most of the off-duty soldiers gathered in the Sholan encampment outside the Palace walls. At first small, it had grown in size till it resembled a small township all of its own. If he wanted to find people capable of teaching him what he now knew he needed to learn, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be Garras or Uncle Dzaka that did it.
He had in mind a couple of Sholans, the ones he’d watched working with and driving the MUTAC, the huge Sholan mechanical fighting machine shaped like a Sholan. He’d have to watch them some more to find out how they would react if he approached them after the refusal he just knew he’d get from his uncle and aunt. Right now, they were in the Sholan bar with a small crowd of friends both Sholan and Valtegan.
* * *
“C’mon, Jer, you know you can do it,” M’Nar wheedled. “Chance for us to make a buck or two out of that asshole as well,” he said quietly as he got to his feet. “Maalad, if you want to see him hit the apple on my head, you gonna need a wooden or plastic panel behind me first,” said M’Nar loudly. “We’re not gonna risk the knives on these metal walls.”
“That’s fair,” said Failan, pushing his chair back and staggering to his feet. “What y’say, Maalad? We gonna do this?”
“Sure, they’re all talk. Bloody Brotherhood think they’re better’n all the rest of us.” He pushed himself drunkenly to his feet, then grabbed the edge of the table and tipped it over. “You wanna backstop? Now you got one! Put it up against the far wall, lads, and clear the floor!”
Around him the other drinkers leaped to their feet and swore at him for spilling their drinks. Those at other tables cheered loudly at the promise of the spectacle to come. Several ran forward to get the table.
Jerenn and M’Nar had remained seated. “You did it again, didn’t you?” Jerenn sighed. “A quiet drink I said, no exhibitionism, I said. Sure, Jer, you said. I promise, you said. Now look at it!”
“But, Jer, he insulted your skills. You have to do this to stick up for our side! C’mon, it’s easy for you, you know it is. Hey, Deksha, lass, you get the bets in!” he called out to the off-duty Sister serving the drinks.
“We gonna get a demonshration,” Maalad said the word slowly and carefully, “of expert knife throwing from this here Jerenn person.” He reached down and clapped Jerenn on the shoulder.
“Aye, M’Nar! Will do,” Deksha said. “Who’ll give me ten to one he hits the fruit first time? Ten to one!”
“I’ve had a few too many beers, M’Nar. You know I don’t like to do this when I’ve been drinking,” said Jerenn.
“Too late to pull out now. You got your knives, haven’t you?”
Jerenn gave him a withering look as he got to his feet. “You got your pistol?” he asked, reaching up to catch the apple that came flying his way.
“Apple for you, Jerenn,” Deksha called out.
Around them, the tables between them and the back wall were being shifted, and theirs was having its legs folded flat and being propped up against the wall with the other one, ready for M’Nar.
“Just don’t throw it so low this time. Last time, you gave me a haircut,” said M’Nar.
“Don’t tempt me! Go on, get into place. Here’s your apple.” He threw it at M’Nar who caught it and with a cheeky grin turned and walked off to the far side of the room.
“So what’s the bet for?” he asked Sister Deksha.
“The usual, Jerenn,” she grinned. “Hit the apple on his head, first shot.”
“The usual? Gods help me, do I do it that often these days? I swear M’Nar is being a dreadful influence on me!”
“Nah, he’s stopped you getting old before your time. You used to be a bit of a stick in the mud until he came along.”
“I prefer responsibly reserved,” he said wryly. “Let’s make M’Nar sweat, shall we?”
“Sure,” she said, a tad uncertainly. “I trust you to hit the apple, but are you sure you haven’t had too much to drink?”
“Oh, I can sober up when I want to,” he grinned toothily at her.
“So, Maalad, you gonna eat your worlds about Jerenn if he makes this shot?” M’Nar called out as he placed himself in front of the upended table and began to balance the apple on his head.
> “If he makes it. I don’t think he will, though! Twenty to one he misses!” He waved a twenty note in the air which Deksha quickly snagged.
“You heard him, ladies and gents!” shouted Deksha “Maalad has twenty bucks that says he misses! Last bets now!” she said, waving a wad of cash in the air.
Jerenn walked into the center of the room, measuring the distance to his sword-brother by eye, then he turned his back on him.
“Jer, you sure about this!” M’Nar called out as the crowd howled in anticipation. “I know you’re good, but . . .”
Jerenn suddenly spun on his heels and threw.
Air whooshed toward M’Nar’s face and the next thing he knew, a shower of apple bits was falling in front of his nose as the two halves of the apple fell to either side. He grabbed for and caught both pieces.
Whistles and calls filled the air as Jerenn took a small bow, then walked up to M’Nar to get his knife.
“You lost, Maalad, you owe him an apology,” said Deksha.
“I owe him nothing It was fixed, I want my money back.” He snatched the twenty back from her.
“Maalad, he won fair and square. Give me the money back and apologize.”
“Be damned if I will apologize to one o’ you black crows of doom. Never see you but deaths follow. It was a fluke, I say. You could never do it again. Do it once more and you get my apology, and my coin.”
“Sore loser!” someone yelled.
“Do it again, Jerenn,” said Goshol, one of the Valtegan infantry present. “I want to see that again!”
M’Nar was walking jauntily down the room chewing on half an apple. He held out the other half to Jerenn who took it. “Nice apple, Pity to waste it,” he said. “So Maalad has reneged on his bet, eh? Well, we’ll have to show him it wasn’t a fluke. Gonna walk me up there, Maalad, so you can see it’s genuine?” He gave Jerenn a broad wink.
“Yeah, I’ll walk you up there—and watch the blade all the way till it slices into you!”
“Cheerful soul, aren’t you?” said M’Nar, linking arms with him and marching back to the upended table.
“No more fruit, Jerenn. Just put a knife above his head?” asked Deksha.
“I can do that,” said Jerenn, getting out five of his knives. “I’m gonna enjoy this one.”
“What you two planning?” asked Deksha, narrowing her eye at him.
“Wait and see,” he said, watching as M’Nar first positioned himself, then spun Maalad so his back was against his chest. “Now, Jer! Don’t struggle, Maalad, you could make Jer miss, you know. Stand still, or you’ll get hit.”
Maalad was a touch taller than M’Nar; the first knife parted his hair and left a hairline crease on his scalp. Maalad howled like one possessed.
M’Nar crushed his arms even tighter round him. “Be still, there’s more to come. You wanted proof, so stand still and get it.”
Rapidly, one after the other, four more blades flew through the air, landing in a kind of halo around the heads of the two Sholans. By the time M’Nar let Maalad go, he fell to the ground, his pink nose and ears white with fear.
“I didn’t . . . I’m sorry, it wasn’t a fluke. Just let me go. Here’s your twenty!” He threw the money at M’Nar and ran for the exit, followed by booing and hissing.
“Five knives I have to sharpen tomorrow,” said Jerenn coming up to pull his knives free. “I hope it was worth it.”
“Deksha?” asked M’Nar.
“Three hundred, and you gave them a good show,” she said, holding out the cash. M’Nar took it and peeled off forty from the top. “Your cut,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” she grinned, walking off with a saucy flick of her tail.
“She has some lovely legs,” murmured M’Nar, then caught sight of Jerenn’s face. “What? Well, she has. Excuse me, I need to do something right now. Meet me outside,” he said, stuffing the money in his pocket and diving into the crowd.
The cub was still there, in the shadows at the edge of the room, able to see yet somehow avoiding being seen himself. Except by M’Nar when he was up getting the knives thrown at him. M’Nar went past him, then reached out behind him, spun round, and body slammed the youngster into the wall. Dazed and breathless, Shaidan was easily picked up and hauled outside into the night where Jerenn waited for him.
“Where did you come from?” demanded Jerenn. “I’d heard there were cubs on K’oish’ik, but I didn’t believe it.”
Shaidan stayed perfectly still in M’Nar’s grasp. “I thought you had seen me,” he said to him. “I’m Shaidan Aldatan. My father is your Liege, Kusac Aldatan.”
“Then you should be in the Palace in bed at this time of night and not in a bar!” said M’Nar, adjusting his grip on him so he was just holding him by the arm. “What were you doing there?”
“And how did you get there!” added Jerenn.
“I came down in the elevator and out the goods entrance,” he said. “I came to find you two.”
The door to the bar opened with a sudden burst of laughter and light.
“We need to get him into cover,” said M’Nar urgently, picking him up in his arms. “His presence isn’t exactly public knowledge—yet.”
“Palace, now, back to his minders,” said Jerenn succinctly.
“No, I want to find out why he came to find us. Cubs rarely do something without a good reason. At least, my cubs don’t,” he amended as he led them off into the night behind the small township.
Once they were out of the glare of the lights, they stopped and M’Nar sat Shaidan down on the ground. “All right, talk, youngling,” he said. “What’s this all about?”
“I need teachers,” he said. “I need to learn skills like your knife throwing, how to fight properly.”
“You’re up at the Palace, there’s Brother Dzaka who can teach you, and Garras. Why do you need us?”
“They’ll say I’m too young, but I need to know now. I feel danger close by, and I need to be ready for it.”
M’Nar looked briefly at Jerenn. “If you sense danger, you should be telling them, youngling. They’re there to protect you.”
“I don’t sense danger now. I just know it will come, but I don’t know when. I need to be ready for it, that’s the important thing. I need both of you to make me ready. I saw you with the MUTAC and with the knives. I need you to teach me what they won’t.”
M’Nar scratched his head. “Kid, you don’t sound like any cub I’ve ever had. Where you get to be so old?”
“We were bred as weapons by the bad Emperor and grown in tanks till we were ten years old, but we were only born a year ago. He sleep taught us everything we know, all about being telepaths and everything. But not how to look after ourselves.”
“Gods! You sure about this? How many of you are there?”
“Six of us. Our parents were all on a ship together. Papa was very ill on it.”
“Wait, I remember that! It was the Prime science ship under K’hedduk!” said Jerenn. “He’s got to be telling us the truth. We have to get him back to the Palace before we really get ourselves into hot water!”
“We can’t help you, Shaidan. You shouldn’t have even been down at the bar. Once they find that out, there’s no way they are going to let us give you weapons training, or even teach you unarmed combat.”
“You’ll find a way because that’s what you do. Solve things,” said Shaidan confidently. “And you were in a knife throwing contest in a bar, which I bet is wrong for you to do.”
Jerenn suddenly developed a bad cough.
“Are you trying to blackmail us into helping you?”
“Yes,” said Shaidan, fixing serious amber eyes on M’Nar. “No, not really,” he admitted, with the grace to look away embarrassed. “Please. I need your help, or something bad might happen to me. Look how easily you caught me
!”
“We’ll see what we can do,” temporized M’Nar, picking him up again.
Shaidan squirmed free. “I can walk, you know,” he said with wounded dignity. “I’m ready to go home now.”
CHAPTER 4
“WE’LL take you back the way you came,” said M’Nar, leading him by the hand back into the main courtyard of the Palace.
“All right, but we’ll have to tell ZSADHI you’re with me, or he’ll fry you with his lasers.”
“Comforting thought,” grunted Jerenn. “Who is ZSADHI?”
“The Palace AI,” said Shaidan. “Haven’t you been in the Palace?”
“Only the chapel,” said M’Nar, “but I guess we’re about to do that now.”
This time, there was no staying in the shade, they walked down the corridor in the light. As soon as they passed through the door into the Palace, Shaidan called up ZSADHI.
“Don’t tell them I’m here, ZSADHI, and these two, Brother M’Nar and Brother Jerenn, are with me.”
“They are looking for you, Master Shaidan,” the AI’s voice said. “It is most irregular for me to keep silent about your return.”
“It’s only for a few minutes.”
They entered the elevator and began the journey up to the fourth floor.
“Should we be here?” asked Jerenn worriedly. “It is the royal Palace.”
“Probably not,” said M’Nar brightly. “When did that ever bother us?”
“My sister wants to meet you,” said Shaidan suddenly as the elevator drew to a stop and the doors opened.
“Shaidan! You’re back!” Gaylla squealed, throwing herself into his arms. “I missed you!”
“Shaidan, where in all the hells have you been?” a male voice called out. As M’Nar and Jerenn stepped out of the elevator, the figure in the priestly robes stopped dead.
“Friends, Uncle Dzaka,” said Shaidan hurriedly. “I met them outside. They built the MUTAC.”
Slowly Dzaka advanced toward them.
“I went out to try and find them to ask about the MUTAC,” said Shaidan, gently moving his sister to one side. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have left here, but I did so want to talk to them.”
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