This Gulf of Time and Stars

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Her brows met. “You have heart-kin?”

  Of all I said, that caught her attention? I thought quickly. Om’ray were connected, one to all. Deeper connections would be significant. Unable to share that sensation, I did the next best thing.

  I stretched out my hand.

  Careful. From Barac. My Chosen merely waited.

  Destin’s eyes shifted to Morgan, then back to me. Suddenly her palm, hard and callused, met mine.

  Power she had, along with a control as finely honed as the blade still at my throat. I lowered my shields, giving her room to explore what I was, what we were, without exposing Morgan or Aryl. When I felt the knife move away, I sought her mind in the M’hir.

  There. A wisp of light within the darkness, steady and calm, beating like a heart. Connected, like a heart. To her Chosen, to others. I let them be. Destin.

  This is the M’hir. Without fear.

  We mustn’t linger, I informed her, pulling us both back.

  Between breaths, that moment of distraction, but enough for Destin to have lowered her weapon and Morgan’s to have disappeared again up his sleeve. She stared at me. “You—I could hardly look at you.”

  Barac nodded. “Sira’s like that.”

  You are, you know, my Chosen sent softly.

  What mattered was how Destin saw me now. “We mean Sona no harm,” I told her. “We are what I said, looking for refuge. A home.”

  “I know.” Almost a smile, then she turned serious again. “Our Council wasn’t wrong to warn you about staying here. It isn’t just the lack of food.” Destin lowered her voice. “The Vyna know our number’s increased. They’re cowards and few, but this—” she gestured to the chamber full of M’hiray “—will tempt them beyond reason. They’ll come. For your supplies.” Quieter still, “most of all, for your children and unChosen.”

  I found myself speechless, my hair coiling like snakes. Barac and Morgan exchanged grim looks; likely more.

  My cousin spoke. “Go on.”

  “There’s no more Passage. No unChosen go from Clan to Chooser. The Oud put a stop to it and the Vyna grow desperate.” Destin paused. “You may be safe in here. I’ve never heard of a Vyna appearing inside a Cloisters. It may be they can’t.”

  I wasn’t reassured. Cloisters were for Adepts and the infirm, unlikely to attract such raiders as Destin described, until now. “What can we do?”

  The First Scout dropped her hand to her knife hilt. “What we do. If any Vyna appear, kill them. You won’t have a second chance.”

  Kill Om’ray? Aryl’s distress mirrored my own.

  “Understood,” Barac said curtly. From the look on Morgan’s face, the two were in full accord.

  How was I to tell our people we faced yet another threat?

  Worse, that it was from our own kind?

  I took it as a mark of their desperation that the mystified Sona had voted unanimously to supply samples of plant and animal life for Holl to analyze, choosing to believe our claim of being able to find an alternative to—what had Aryl named it?—dresel.

  They weren’t the only ones. The Tikitik said there was a food—a favorite—like dresel for each Clan. Aryl appeared entranced. We’d no way to discover which it was for ourselves, even if we’d thought of it. This is wonderful!

  “It’s a start,” Morgan replied, ever-cautious. As a gesture of goodwill, we’d promised the Sona to feed ourselves. A fair number of M’hiray had been traveling with what emergency supplies they’d been able to pack; combining those, we had sufficient concentrated rations to last our group for three days.

  Three days ago, a lifetime ago, I’d been on the Silver Fox, learning I was pregnant. “We’ve time,” I said, forcing cheer into my voice. “That’s what counts.”

  My Human lifted an eyebrow. “Stuck in here for another three days?”

  “We’re more comfortable.” Thanks to Destin, the Sona had brought bedding and some furnishings, having those to spare. The decline of their Clan was written in hands that placed a chair just so, or gently unfolded a blanket. They brought us clothing as well, better suited to the jungle than ours; a gesture that boded well.

  “I had to promise. We outnumber them three to one,” I reminded him. “They’ve every right to be anxious about us roaming freely.” We’d worries of our own. And what of the Vyna?

  We’re ready.

  I stopped trying on boots. Morgan and Barac had had a series of murmured—or utterly silent—conversations since Destin left us, with, now that I thought about it, the most physically capable of the M’hiray.

  And weren’t those blue eyes just brimming with innocence?

  An innocence I knew better than to trust. “Do I want to know?”

  Witchling. With a world of regret.

  Meaning I didn’t. I went back to fitting a Sona boot against the sole of my foot.

  Because Morgan knew and Barac—and now those others—how to kill another person. They hadn’t taught me.

  Knowing there was no need. I’d defend my people if it came to it, my way.

  Barac stood watch by the door the Sona preferred to use, offering his smiling help with each new load for the M’hiray. That this let him see outside the door each time it turned open hadn’t bothered the Om’ray. I’d a feeling Destin had arranged it, realizing that view, now shared, would allow us to ’port from the chamber at will.

  It wasn’t quite freedom, the still-wary Sona having insisted we promise not to leave without permission. Deni, eager to explore the Cloisters, refused to talk to me. Tle di Parth had proved disturbingly agreeable, given there was an unChosen of respectable strength on the other side of the door, a better Candidate for her Choice than any here and doubtless eager to meet her. Her easy cooperation puzzled me until I noticed her attention to the older of the di Licor brothers.

  The pair had been assigned the unused door by Barac, a valid duty, if one unlikely to be dangerous. Asdny seemed unaware, as yet, of Tle’s interest or that of our other Choosers. When ready, instinct would step in. If Tle’s Power-of-Choice roused, he’d be drawn to it over any other.

  If? When. Then the fireworks, as Morgan would say.

  Jacqui and Ermu would rouse as well. Three Choosers, four unChosen, five if I counted the Sona, all in one place.

  Om’ray unChosen left on Passage. Or did, Aryl informed me. Choosers would call to them. Guide them.

  It sounded like a romance-vid until I considered the landscape and neighbors between. How many died?

  A pause. Most.

  There were reasons the Clan Council had rules governing Choice. Saving unChosen from themselves—and Choosers from one another—among them.

  Asdny was the youngest and weakest. Tle’s Power was too great for him to survive. What was she thinking? If she was, I decided grimly, having had my own brush with that instinct lately. I supposed I’d have to talk to Sona’s Council on this issue, too. Or, I brightened, I could have Enora sud Sarc do it. Who better than—?

  “We’ve a visitor,” my Chosen announced. We watched Barac speak briefly with whomever stood outside. When the conversation ended, he waited till the door closed, then beckoned to Asdny to take his place. “With news,” Morgan added. For my cousin was heading our way in some haste, dodging what were becoming minor encampments.

  When Barac came close, I could see his frown. “Now what?” I grumbled. Cersi was becoming a bit unfair.

  Morgan stretched lazily. “Nothing’s wrong. That I can taste.”

  I eyed him. “You aren’t always right, you know. Remember that time on Pocular—?”

  He grinned. “All of them. Happy you do.”

  Incorrigible, that’s what he was. I found myself grinning back.

  Arrived, Barac shook his finger at the pair of us. “No more of that.” Before I could blush, he gave the news. “They want Morgan outside to choose the s
amples we need.”

  And didn’t those blue eyes light up at that?

  “I said we weren’t putting any of our people at risk,” Barac continued, giving me a look as plain as any sending. He knew Morgan, too. “They insisted I tell you of their—request.”

  “Good thing,” Morgan said briskly. “Perfect timing. The rain’s stopped.”

  As if that could possibly make the notion of him outside, with these Om’ray who considered him not-real, not to mention the threat of Vyna, any more palatable. “Check the samples,” I told him, “and come right back.”

  “Check the samples. Take a look around. Then come right back.” Morgan lifted his arms, palm up. His signal for the final offer on the table. “Come get me if there’s a problem.”

  “There better not be a problem,” I threatened.

  “That’s the spirit,” he applauded, growing improbably more cheerful.

  While he and Barac went over the necessary preparations, Aryl contributing advice I did my best not to overhear, I considered the Sona and this change to our arrangement.

  Wanted Morgan—my Chosen—did they?

  Fair enough.

  There was something I wanted in return.

  Interlude

  MORGAN LOST HIS SMILE and tightened his shields the instant he passed through the door. Much as he’d like to view this as an adventure, it was as far from it as any action he’d seen on Karolus. The Sona had been willing to murder them.

  He was more than willing to find out how.

  “$#@*~”

  Destin, the First Scout herself, gesturing for him to follow her down the hall. Three more Om’ray stepped up to flank him. Instead of moving, Morgan brought up one hand, fingers spread, then slowly reached into a pocket. Her pale eyes tracked the movement, flicking to his face, then back.

  He fastened the comlink to the collar of his coat. “Repeat.” A burst of fluid sound came from the small cylinder.

  The Om’ray nearest him grunted, “(*#&@S”

  The ’link rendered that as: Oud tricks.

  They weren’t surprised by his tech. “Not Oud,” Morgan replied earnestly. With the barest rudiments in the ’link, he couldn’t trust it with anything complex. Unfortunately, this was, if he understood Cersi at all, a crucial point. “Not Oud. Mine.” Morgan pointed to himself.

  “$#%”

  That one he’d figured out already: “not-real.” “Not Om’ray,” he corrected firmly. “Chosen.”

  Destin studied him for a silent moment. Come. She paused, then added, Chosen.

  Translator’s working, he sent in triumph. Morgan didn’t look back at the sound of raised voices. Sira’d told him what she planned to do; the Om’ray, he thought fondly, didn’t have a hope of resisting. Still. Don’t trust them.

  I won’t if you won’t. A rush of affection . . . something wistful.

  He wasn’t the only one who relished exploring. Morgan hid a smile. Next time, chit.

  Once he’d determined this new world’s risks.

  Chapter 41

  BEFORE THE DOOR COULD CLOSE after Morgan, I stepped into the opening. “Move aside, please.”

  Gurutz’s attention had wandered after Morgan and the others. He started at my voice, leaking astonishment. “What did you say?”

  I chose to ignore his lack of manners. “Risking my Chosen outside has changed our arrangement,” I informed him. “We’re going to examine the levels we’ll be using.” I smiled. “You’re welcome to come along.”

  “I can’t leave my—” Flustered, he looked around for support. It having left with Morgan, he deflated. “You can’t. This is a matter for—”

  I moved forward.

  “—Council.” The poor Om’ray hesitated, eyes dropping to my pendant, then backed out of my way. Attitude, my Human would say, was half the battle with aliens. Not always the better half, but I’d taken his point. Trusting those behind me to follow my example, I sauntered down the hall of Sona’s Cloisters as if I’d lived there my entire life.

  I’d left Barac in charge, much to his chagrin, bringing with me those most likely to make sense of what we might find: Jacqui, Deni sud Kessa’at, Nik and Josa sud Prendolat, and—after some thought—Degal di Sawnda’at.

  Morgan wondered what had changed since Aryl di Sarc walked these halls. So did I; so did she, though her memories of this place were filled with loss. I could wish to spare her further grief.

  I respected my great-grandmother’s courage too much to even try.

  Degal, like most of the others, didn’t know Aryl existed. I hadn’t felt inclined to share that a “ghost” inhabited my fatherless baby, there being a sufficiency of strange for them to face at the moment.

  What Degal did know were the Prime Laws, the guiding principles set in place, I now suspected, not by the M’hiray but by the Maker in this Cloisters. Degal’s familiarity with the finer details as well as resulting Council decisions might not seem immediately of use.

  I was betting it would. There were deeper reasons here. Implications that teased at me—or was that terrified? I wasn’t the only one to question this world. Morgan could name several within the Trade Pact where more than one intelligence had evolved in tandem, but those were either combined as obligate symbionts or isolated by adaptation to physically incompatible environments.

  If Cersi was the Om’ray homeworld, where had the Oud and Tikitik come from—and why?

  The first mystery to solve, however, was this building. My new memories told me something of its structure, as did those of the other M’hiray the Maker had intended to serve as Adepts, yet there were gaps not even Aryl could fill. As for the Dream Chamber?

  It held a fascination I thoroughly distrusted.

  The corridor was illuminated by light emerging from the curve where walls met ceiling, as we’d seen in the Council Chamber; unlike that space, this floor was less resilient underfoot and pale yellow. The outer wall was broken by a series of large triple arches, the inner being a metal door, the two outer being clear windows. Opposite those, on the inner wall, were smaller doors. Aryl showed me the trick to opening them, but I stopped after looking into the third identical room, each empty and too small for living quarters.

  We passed framed art at intervals, none of it comprehensible. Deni grew so intent on whatever his device’s display was telling him, I waited for him to walk into a wall. He certainly wasn’t observing for himself.

  Jacqui was, eyes round with wonder, head turning each time we passed a window. The Chosen pair divided their attention between the device Nik held in one hand, and where we were going.

  With occasional dark looks at Degal.

  Forget him, I wanted to tell them. Forget what Degal’s Council had forbidden that had driven them to my mother and her lonely lab, starting with a daughter they hadn’t allowed to be fostered. I wanted—but wouldn’t. We’d forgotten too much recently.

  You can’t protect them from their choices.

  I smiled at Aryl’s crisp advice. I but follow your example, Great-grandmother.

  Deni stopped at one of the frames and we gathered around him. It looked like all the others, to me, of the same gray-green metal as the pendant weighing on my neck. Like the pendant, its disks and squares bore symbols. Not identical, I judged, comparing the two, but similar enough to have been made by the same hands.

  If hands had been involved. Nothing about the Om’ray suggested they were capable of such construction. Another mystery.

  Show me. After I did so, Aryl replied, I never knew what they were. Marcus—a poignant pause—I wondered if his clever devices could have told me, but he wasn’t allowed inside.

  “Deni?” I asked for us both, for he’d brought up his own.

  Only to put aside one instrument to hurriedly fumble out another, repeating the same motion over the metal. He reached along a section of bare wa
ll.

  “I—a moment, please.” He touched Nik and Josa, consulting in private, as was their habit. Before Degal could be offended by this breach of manners, Deni dropped his hand, staring at the framed symbols. “It’s a control panel—or input of some kind.” He looked down the hall, mouth moving as if counting those in view. “They’re connected within the wall.”

  I asked what I thought a sensible question, given we stood in an otherwise ordinary hallway. “What are they for?”

  His smile was rapturous. “I have no idea.”

  Om’ray technology? Aryl sounded fascinated. Enris always claimed it was so, that we were more, once.

  But what? I might not taste change, but this left a sick feeling in my stomach. Rows of empty rooms. Panel after panel of controls across from them. Storage?

  Or a prison.

  Maybe I had another clue to offer. I passed Deni the pendant, pointing out the symbols. “Do these mean anything?”

  The three huddled over it, scanning and muttering.

  Sira. It was Barac. Andi says more Om’ray have entered the Cloisters. Coming to you.

  We’d been noticed. My point made concerning Morgan, I saw no gain in further confrontation until I’d reason for it. “We’ve company,” I advised the others. “Let’s see as much as we can first.”

  “We concur.” Nik wasn’t answering me. She handed back the pendant. “It’s a transmitter.”

  I paused, the chain over my head. Not was, is. “It’s still working?” My voice had a regrettable squeak.

  “If you’d put it on, please, Sira?”

  And why would I do that? But the three gave me such earnest looks, I finished the motion, feeling the pendant thud into place. The Tikitik can detect the metal of the pendant—and of tokens, Aryl ventured. Is that what they mean?

  I don’t think so.

  Heads went down over instruments. Then up. Nik spoke, “Increased signal emission, both strength and complexity. I’d say it’s intended to be worn.”