I supposed it might be. Any of her followers might see the ease with which we eliminated distance and begin to rethink their beliefs.
Which wasn’t, I told myself, at all my fault. “Leave this to me.”
I walked over to where Mirim stood at a distance, surrounded by the rest of her people. There was something to be said for their way of moving from place to place. By the fifth step, I’d let go of both temper and frustration; by the next-to-last, I’d stopped thinking of her and her kind as utter fools. Finally, I stopped in front of her and gestured my own polite apology.
“I meant no disrespect, Mother,” I said, projecting sincerity. “I was concerned for my close kin and their Birth Watcher.”
Andi’s eyes widened with surprise.
Mirim’s were like ice. “Why are they here?”
I told her the simple truth. “They have nowhere else to go.” I raised my hand, indicating the lift in the floor. “And we do.”
“All of us?”
>HERE . . . herehereHERE!!!<
I could insist, like the voice in my head. These might be Mirim’s followers, but mine was the greater Power. What choice would she have?
Bowing my head to her, I raised it, hair slipping around my arms, for once in agreement. “With your consent.”
She looked taken aback, then perplexed. Hers was a transparent face, unused to secrecy. Like Rael’s, I thought, my heart sore. Finally, the tense lines around her mouth and eyes eased. “Kurr’s brother,” she said then, looking past me to Barac.
Who’d come, with Ruti and Jacqui, to stand behind me. At the acknowledgment, he bowed with impeccable grace. “Barac di Bowart. My Chosen, Ruti di Bowart.”
The young Chosen bowed shyly at the introduction. “My mother spoke of your friendship with my great-grandmother. Ne sud Parth?”
Mirim’s face lightened further. “We fostered together.”
Though echoing their bows, Jacqui hung back. I sensed her reticence. Had the collection above overwhelmed her? With her training, the merest glimpse would tell her its significance.
Not that—or not only that, I thought with pity. She’d sense Asdny—thankfully up in the laboratory—as almost ready for her Choice. Now, here, she’d be aware of Tle, another Chooser and competition she couldn’t match. Not in Power, I added to myself. We were more than that.
We had to be. “Jacqui di Mendolar,” I introduced.
“I know who she is.” Mirim scowled and let a sting of outrage through her shields. “Jarad lured this one from her family to be his apprentice. Now he’d use her to get close to my grandchild.”
“Jacqui’s our Birth Watcher,” Ruti countered. Mine, her tone said, and worthy.
A hand rested on Andi’s shoulder. “This is Sira’s. Leave how you came and take her with you.” Mirim brought forth the milky crystal. “We know what to do.”
“By bringing who knows what back to life?!” Jacqui pushed by Ruti and Barac to confront my mother, bristling like an outraged Skenkran. “You aren’t the only ones who know about Vessels and what’s used to fill them. What you’re holding is a relic. There’s no knowing if it even—”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted, I thought with remarkable mildness under the circumstances. “What do you mean, ‘back to life’?”
>here<
Mirim gave a harsh laugh. “No knowing? You’ve dusted it enough.”
Which wasn’t helping. “It’s the crystal I took from the Hall of Ancestors,” I clarified. “It changed when I ’ported it here.” I braced for Jacqui’s reaction. She’d been distressed when I’d simply touched the thing and now the treasured scrap had vanished. “It’s been—talking.”
Jacqui gasped with elation, her hands out and trembling. Could it be? She swept a deep bow to the crystal, gesturing the highest level of respect. “The great Naryn di Su’dlaat, Savior of the M’hiray, LIVES AGAIN!”
I found myself sitting rather abruptly on the dusty floor.
Interlude
“HOW DID YOU GET IN this time?”
Sector Chief Lydis Bowman tapped the side of her snub nose. “I’m good at opening things, Morgan. You know that.”
Entering a locked starship—his ship—was as far beyond “good at opening things” as a moon over a planet, but he’d get no better answer. “Glad you aren’t in custody.”
He saw the wear of evading that custody: hollowed cheeks, an angry new scar-to-be along her blunt jaw, eyes as hard as he’d ever seen. “I’m on a clock,” Bowman snapped. “You do realize this is the stupidest place you could have come?”
Morgan took the seat opposite hers at the small table, doing his best to appear calm even as his pulse raced. “You’ve set a trap here,” he guessed. “With yourself as bait.”
The corner of her thin lips twitched. “Of course. The rest can mop up; I’m after the Facilitator.”
The legendary smuggler king? Morgan added that tidbit to Cartnell and the syndicates and didn’t like the result. “Explains how the Assemblers could strike on so many worlds at once.”
“Now the Facilitator’s cleaning house. Fry’s turned up dead. Gayle’s missing, likely the same. I imagine the Assemblers will find themselves stranded when all’s done, or worse.” Bowman paused, fixing her eyes on his. Something stirred in their depths. “How many got away?”
“Not enough,” Morgan answered grimly. “Tell me you didn’t have a hand in this—that you didn’t toss the Clan to Cartnell and his thugs just to catch a smuggler.”
She gazed at him, no expression on her face. “And you’d take my word for it.”
All in, he thought. There was no other way with Lydis Bowman; there never had been. “Yes.”
Gods, a smile, however fleeting. “Good. I didn’t. That doesn’t absolve me of guilt. I’ve something they want, something Cartnell—” and the way she said the name sent a shiver down Morgan’s back, “—used to set this in motion.” Bowman put her noteplas on the table between them, by its shabby appearance quite possibly the one she’d had when they first met and always carried.
She cracked it in half.
A thin white strip dropped free, curled. A dataflash; one use.
It appeared to have her full attention. “Every family has someone who stumbles, Morgan,” Bowman said, almost idly. “Just not mine, you understand. The Clan don’t let it happen.”
The Clan? Questions crowded his throat. Knowing this woman, Morgan swallowed them and waited.
“I was on what you’d call a different career path when my mother decided the time had come to show me what’s on this. Afterward, she sent me to meet the Clan Speaker, Jarad di Sarc. Law enforcement was his idea.” Her bark of a laugh. “I believe he expected me to stay a Port Jelly.”
“And when you didn’t?” Morgan dared ask. “When you kept digging into their business?”
Bowman tapped the table with her scarred finger. “I open things because I don’t like mysteries. The Clan were one. Still are. Accepting promotion gave me better tools to pursue my curiosity.”
“A curiosity they allowed,” he persisted. “Why?” Certain it mattered—that she’d come for this reason.
“Because I’m a Bowman.” She readied her thumb over the wisp of white between them. “One chance to know what that means, Morgan of Karolus.” When he didn’t reach for it, she shrugged. “Or not. Your call. As it happens, I’m also the last Bowman. There’s no one else to show.”
Before her thumb could descend, he’d picked up the wisp.
Change. Its taste disguised any the dataflash might have had as Morgan put it under his tongue. As it dissolved, he closed his eyes.
. . . Figures took shape. Human. Two women, two children. Their clothing was of a time before. The one woman had long red hair and held the youngest, a girl. The older child was a boy . . .
The image changed.
. . . A man’s face, battered, bruised, with death in his weary eyes. A voice, halting yet determined . . .
“My name is . . . Marcus Bowman . . .”
There was more. By the end, Morgan buried his face in his arms on the table, his mind overflowing with a dead man’s pained confession. No, whatever fault this Marcus took for himself wasn’t deserved; by his actions, he’d proved himself a decent, good person, a hero.
If only to a few. “Marcus knew the consequences,” Morgan said slowly, raising his head. “His reputation would be ruined; his family suffer for it. This was never about the Clan protecting the Bowmans.”
“It was about us protecting the Clan.” Bowman leaned back, arms across her stomach. “Now you know.”
Something was different about her. All at once, he realized what it was. She’d lowered her guard, possibly for the very first time. Morgan wasn’t sure if he should be flattered.
Or worried.
He settled for curious. “How’s that been?”
“Easier herding toads in spawning season, let me tell you.” She grew serious. “We knew their history, how they’d come to make this choice. Turned out they didn’t. Something stripped their memories, and they arrived every bit as naive and vulnerable as Marcus feared and made—let’s say the Clan fell in with the wrong people and never looked back.” A shrug. “We did what we could. Harder once they scattered, but a Bowman always had the ear of the current Speaker. Sometimes they listened. My time came.” Her mouth twisted. “I thought I could change things for the better—that I had.”
He’d been part of that change; looking back, knowing what he now did, so much more made sense. Morgan shook off the past. “That’s why you came to the Claws & Jaws that night. To meet with the new Speaker. Why didn’t Sira know about this?”
“Good question.” Bowman picked up the halves of her noteplas, snapping them back together. “Each Clan Speaker is made aware of his or her obligation to Marcus’ descendants. I’d assumed Sira had been, till Plexis. Afterward?” Her face hardened. “Cartnell’d poisoned most of the Trade Pact against me.”
“You thought Sira believed the news reports.” Explaining why Bowman hadn’t answered her com, why she hadn’t contacted the Fox. “You thought Sira—the Clan—had abandoned you.”
“I had to consider the possibility.” Her eyes chilled. “One thing I’ve learned about today’s Clan? They aren’t the same as those my grandfather helped.”
They’d been, what had Marcus called them? Om’ray, once. The Om’ray of Cersi. Their world had had a name, not just a designation in a file.
Another name, spoken with aching tenderness. Aryl di Sarc. First to ’port through the M’hir; the one who’d gathered those like her, the M’hiray; and the one who’d fought to prevent her world from being destroyed by their very existence.
Whose descendant he feared faced the same terrible choice. “Sira.”
“Sira,” Bowman repeated, with sincere warmth. “Her, I didn’t see coming. You’ll tell her.” With no doubt. The warmth left her voice. “As for the rest of it—you can guess what Cartnell dangled.”
“The Hoveny site.” The final piece: how the Clan had appeared in the Trade Pact with such wealth and power, how they’d kept their secrets so long, even why they’d feared Humans.
Anyone with that secret should.
“What of his records? The real ones.” Marcus Bowman had feared sending the truth to those in authority; that hadn’t meant he’d deserted his work. Part of his dying message had been the codes to retrieve his full reports.
Bowman tilted her stool back, her hand dropping out of sight. “Are you asking if I have the coordinates?” With a casualness that didn’t fool him at all.
Morgan kept his hands where she could see them. “I’m asking,” he said evenly, “if you still protect the Clan.”
Her hand came back to the table; the needler in it safely in standby mode. “Someone better.” Bowman gave him a keen look, then nodded. “Someone does. Well enough. There are no records. No coordinates to a secret treasure world. Kari Bowman, my grandmother, destroyed them. She understood how deadly that information could be—to us as well as the Clan. And was right. Look what mere rumor has done. That’s everything,” she announced firmly. “We’re done.”
Everything, from Bowman? Morgan frowned at her. “This isn’t because you plan to throw your life away, is it? Because if it is, I’ll get Terk on the com and lock you in the galley till he gets here.”
“Such a suspicious mind.” Bowman rose to her feet, pulling on a coat. She tucked the needler in an inner pocket, her noteplas in another. “My plan, Captain Morgan, was to stop by and warn you to get offworld, you and your lady and every other Clan here. Things are, I promise, going to get hot.”
Standing, she came barely up to his shoulder, a stern-faced, middle-aged woman who made even a new dress uniform look scruffy. Dressed as she was now, she might have been a street merchant or custodian. Easy to overlook.
Easy to underestimate.
“What?” she snapped, giving her ill-fitting coat a tug.
And by far the most dangerous person he’d ever met.
“Good hunting,” Morgan said blandly.
And hoped they’d meet again.
Chapter 23
THE OPEN SPACE AROUND US was a din of voices and their echoes. Loudest was my mother’s. “Great? Savior?” Mirim snorted. “As I thought. Jarad’s filled your head with his nonsense. My grandmother was bitter and Power-mad!”
As Jacqui responded furiously—something about ignorance and lack of scholarship, which drew more ire from the rest—Ruti offered me her hand. Meeting her earnest gaze, I accepted the help to climb to my feet, unsurprised to receive an urgent warning. Some believe Perversion is a way for ghosts to be reborn. Don’t let them do that to your baby, Sira!
I squeezed her hand before letting go. However tempted I was to shout at the rest, it wouldn’t improve matters. It appeared the more academic Clan were accustomed to arguing, loudly. So instead, to everyone but Andi, I sent what I hadn’t yet shared.
My grief. At losing so many.
At losing Rael.
Silence fell, utter and immediate. Tle covered her eyes. Ruti pressed herself to Barac’s side. He gave me a nod, his face working.
“Remember why we’re here,” I said very quietly. “The M’hiray will end if we fail.” I looked at each in turn, waited for their nods before continuing, “Mother, explain to me how that—” I gestured to the crystal. “—can be of any help.”
Jacqui made to speak, then closed her lips.
“This isn’t only about our quest,” Mirim said, her voice heavy. “If we don’t act, you’ll both die.”
DIE?
Easy, I sent my alarmed Chosen, unsurprised my reactions were bleeding through to him. Let’s hear them out. “What do you mean, ‘cannot be born’?”
“Birth Watcher.” Andi looked up; Holl silenced her with a gentle touch.
Jacqui swallowed, but answered. “Babies decide when to be born. Once ready, they loosen their link to their mother, allowing separation. Birth Watchers reassure them this is good and necessary.” She paused; I’d the feeling I wasn’t going to like what came next.
I was right. “An empty Vessel has no wants. No abilities. No way to let go. If it’s not somehow filled before birth, the mother—” Her eyes evaded mine and she dropped her voice to a mutter. “There’s no way to be sure. Such a thing hasn’t happened since Stratification—”
“And won’t happen anytime soon,” Tle broke in. “What’s urgent is to find the Origin. Naryn di Su’dlaat can tell us the way.”
>HERE . . . herehereHERE<
Having a name to go with the eager voice made it no less horrifying. Long-dead relatives belonged that way.
Unless, I conceded reluctantly, they could be of use. “To ask, you nee
d—her—in here.” I put a hand on my abdomen. A round of mostly relieved nods. “How is it done?”
A disconcerting pause.
Barac laughed without humor. “There’s your answer, Sira.”
Wonderful. “Then we’ll do this another way.” I stepped on the platform. “Coming?”
Sira. Our link tightened until we might have been one mind. I held up a hand to stop the others, taking in what Morgan had to tell me. Bowman’s in action. Keep away from windows and doors. I’m coming to you.
Do you want me there? Even as I asked, I felt his discomfort. What’s wrong?
Stay where you are.
“What is it?” Barac, his breath on my cheek. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” Jason.
I’m bringing a few things.
As if we packed for a trip incountry. As if everything were fine.
As if I believed any of it. Jason?
Almost done. Morgan closed off everything but the words. I’ll be there soon.
Then I lost all but the faintest sense of him.
“Bowman’s here and making a move,” I told my cousin.
His hand dropped to where I knew he kept his force blade. Ruti stepped close. “What do you want us to do?”
“I—”
All at once, Mirim’s face grew ashen and she sank to her knees. As the others exclaimed and hurried to her, I sent, What is it?
Her eyes met mine. There was horror in their depths.
“Change!” Barac was leaning on Ruti. “Stronger. Worse than before.”
I didn’t let myself doubt—or feel. Morgan wanted us away from windows and doors. Some weren’t. “Barac, Ruti, Jacqui. Go to the lab. Get everyone down here, along with what supplies you can. ’Port them.”
It was a sign of my mother’s dismay that she didn’t try to argue.
“What will you be doing?” Barac demanded.
“Finding someplace safe,” I replied. “Safer. Go. Tle, you, too.” She didn’t pretend to misunderstand; whatever her group believed about the M’hir, Tle di Parth used it as willingly as any other Clan.
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