by Viola Grace
“Handy. Well, my name is Tyvor. You are Skiria?”
“I am.”
His hands were on her waist and she was wearing nothing but a sheet.
“Where did my clothing go?”
“You have an armoured suit waiting for you. It will help you in my natural environment. You are now in a form of witness protection.”
She blinked and slowly clutched the sheet to her chest. “What?”
“My world has offered you sanctuary, and I don’t believe that you have a choice in accepting it.”
Skiria narrowed her eyes and sent her mind to his. He leaned back when she made contact, and once she had rifled through his thoughts, she retreated. “Fine. I will come with you.”
Salass was the world and it was ninety percent water. She would be stationed on one of the small islands and a home was waiting for her.
“How long did they know I was coming?” Skiria slowly moved her legs to one side of the medical bed, and she winced as feeling returned with her circulation.
“Six months. The seers warned us six months ago and that is when I was inducted into the Citadel. No Salassian had been brought off world before me, but I received the training and returned home to wait until it was time to bring you to Salass.”
He was telling the truth; she had made a memory copy of him and compared his words to his memory.
“What did you just do, Skiria?”
“I am not quite sure. It was something I did on instinct.” Her brain was already discarding the bright strength of his memories. They were fading away and tucking themselves into a corner of her mind like shadows in a box.
“I am a long-range telekinetic. I have mixed with telepaths and am familiar with most of the standard minds and techniques, but yours are unique.”
Skiria looked into his solid eyes and nodded when she managed to read the truth in his expression. Reading his mind was cheating, but it had been a reflex she had been unable to resist. She was going to restart their interaction and that meant learning how his face moved when he was sincere.
“I do believe that they are. Perhaps that is why things have been arranged for me.”
He inclined his head. “Remain here. I will get your suit. It will support you as you regain your strength.”
She sat still with her feet slowly swinging while her companion disappeared. If she was going to be off her world, at least she had company who was willing to chat and who didn’t mind when her thoughts got a little grabby. His mind had been so easy to invade that she hadn’t bothered reining herself in. If the world she was about to visit had others on it of a similar nature, self-control was something she needed to practice.
Another world. Skiria fought hysterical laughter. For as many talents as she helped to leave Resicor, she had never imagined herself to be included in their number. Now, she had no chance to choose her own fate, she just had to make the best of the situation she was in.
Chapter Three
The suit was definitely supportive; it was also snugger than her swimsuit the year she turned eighteen and liked to splay out on the beach. When she was nineteen, she had been selected for government work and her beach days were over.
As she carefully sat next to Tyvor, he turned his head toward her and nodded. “Good. It will insulate you when you swim and support you if you are at any serious depth.”
“What are my options when this is being cleaned?”
“It is self-cleaning, will deploy breathing apparatus for you and keep you safe on your new home.” He smiled brightly, showing his teeth slightly in the blue colouration surrounding his lips.
“You look like you designed it.” She had seen that look of pride before.
“I did. It was created by Fixer and Tech of the Sector Guard, but I put in the requirements that you would face on Salass. It was my first assignment when I was training at the Citadel.”
“Why did you agree to go?”
He cocked his head and ran a hand over his tightly braided hair. “It seemed like the thing to do. I was always a little odd at home, and when the Citadel came to the door, it seemed like an opportunity that I could not pass up.”
She chuckled. “Right. Now, getting back to something you said earlier. I was dead?” She ran her finger around the neckline of the neck-to-toe bodysuit.
“It was necessary to register you as dead so that those who assisted you could remain in their positions.”
“So, I had to die.”
She remembered darkness and then the bright surge of light before her final communication with Resicor. She thought it had been a dream.
“More or less.”
“And you were waiting for me.”
“I was. Resicor caught you and handed you over to me, so to speak.” He shrugged.
She decided to change the subject again and ran her hands over the torso of the suit. “It is the same colour as my eyes.”
“I suggested that we match your hair but was told it would be less than appropriate to have you become a blue blob in the oceans.”
Skiria made a face and then paused. “You knew what I looked like?”
“The seer saw all and had access to all of your personnel files. They knew who you were before you did.”
The statement hung in the air between them.
Tyvor smiled. “It is an odd thought to you; I can see that much in your features. My people are all fairly well versed in the arts of mind-to-mind communication. We also do much with body language, though you have to be in the water to do it properly.”
“The folk of Resicor do not have seers. Well…not very strong ones.”
He laughed. “Seers are some of the best hidden of the talents when they know what they are and wish to hide.”
Skiria blinked. “I suppose.”
“Attach that harness you are sitting on. We are preparing for landing and we will be going in hot.”
She reached behind her and attached the harness, surprised when it pulled her tight on its own.
“What does going in hot mean?”
“It means we have a minute window to get through the planetary shielding and the interior defenses. We have to move fast and hit the water hard.”
For the first time she focussed on the world with its blue-purple water covering nearly all the surface. “Oh good grief and sobbing sisters.” She gripped the arms of her chair with all her strength.
He flicked on a com system and whispered and clicked into a microphone. An answering set of clicks sounded and a light flashed over the surface that they were approaching. A wavy ripple worked through the sky in their path and small vessels circled below that, leaving a hole that their ship was going to have to fly through.
“Hold tight. This is going to light the hull on fire and that tends to spook some first-time fliers.” Tyvor smiled tightly and gripped the controls, slowing, relaxing and tightening his fingers one by one. He exhaled, inhaled and then they were nose-diving toward Salass.
It took only a few minutes to fall into the planet and past the blur of the circled ships. The water frothed under them as they grew closer, and when it swallowed the ship, there was a tremendous hiss and crackling as the hull cooled in seconds.
Tyvor sighed with relief and smiled as the ship slowed, manoeuvring under the sea and toward a huge tower of stone deep below the surface.
Skiria leaned forward and looked up, shuddered and sat back as she tried to calculate the weight of water over her head. Breathing with all that water around her was next to impossible, but she inhaled, exhaled and focussed on keeping herself calm.
They were on a slow path to an opening, and he asked her, “How are you doing over there? I hear that air breathers can have a problem when they are first under the surface.”
“I am concentrating on not panicking. Do you…I mean…does everyone here breathe water?”
“The population of this world is amphibious in its entirety. You will be very exotic here.” He winked.
“I don’t want to
be exotic; I just want to be free. If I can’t have the run of the planet, I want to at least have the freedom to choose those that I sleep with, or not as the case may be.” She couldn’t believe that she was having this conversation with a stranger, but since she had rifled through his mind, she had to admit that they were more familiar than they should have been.
“Your freedom will be limited, but you will have what we can provide.” He moved them into a cavern, and glowing lichen illuminated their path.
They settled on a platform, and to Skiria’s shock, they didn’t rise above the water.
“Um…I can’t breathe down here.”
“You can. The moment your suit gets wet, it will protect you and create oxygen for you. You will survive.” He shut down the ship and unclasped his harness.
She followed his example and trailed after him slowly. He led her to a hatch at the rear of the craft and opened the door to a small chamber.
Tyvor beckoned her to join him inside the tiny room. “Come with me. I promise I will not leave you.”
Swallowing hard, she stepped toward him and took the hand he held out to her. Her gloved fingers clutched at his when the door sealed shut behind them and water swirled around her feet. Out of reflex, she gripped his mind with hers when the water rose and her suit still hadn’t reacted.
His black gaze and calm expression kept her from clawing at the walls when the water passed her hips. When her breathing began to come rapidly, she heard a click that preceded the grip of the suit around her neck rising to frame her face and cover her features in a clear shell that she could feel but not see.
The water rose rapidly, and she saw the world magnified as the pressure was felt but not painful. Tyvor was her focus. He was the lodestone she stared at as their chamber filled and the pressure increased. She could make out sparkly silver freckles now that the water was between them, and for some reason that amused her.
When they were floating gently, the outer door opened to set them free. Tyvor flexed his forearms and fins opened in a fan fold. She could see his gills fluttering slowly as he breathed, and he released one hand and kept the other with him as they floated out into the contingent of guards waiting for them.
Tyvor did not feel alarmed; he felt like this is what he had been expecting. His mind was incredibly calm.
Being towed through the water was strange, but she was able to concentrate on breathing and staying calm, trusting in her new suit. Seven armed men swam around them in escort and each had the same arm fins as well as fins on their bare legs that aided in propulsion.
She was brought to an open-walled chamber where archways gave the idea of a room without actually blocking the flow of current. To her amazement, a shoal of tiny fish skittered around her before darting for the far end of the space.
A woman with a stern expression rose and inclined her head. I have been told that you have the ability to mind speak, so I will be plain; we did not wish to host you but the Avatar of Salass insisted. They are unable to be here today, and so, I greet you on their behalf. Welcome to Salass.
Skiria inclined her head. Thank you for the less than enthusiastic welcome. I am honoured that you allow me on your world.
The woman’s face scowled. Well, that is as may be. My son, Tyvor, will be your go-between, and if you have any questions, you may ask him. He and the guard will escort you to your home above. I am sure you will find it more to your liking.
Skiria blinked. I am sure it will be suitable if you give it such a ringing endorsement.
Tyvor grabbed her arm and hauled her away before his mother could express her irritation further.
That wasn’t wise. His tone was wry in her mind.
Your mother is too much like a manager I used to have. I worked on polite sarcasm with her until it was perfected. I would apologize, but with thought transmission, she would know I was not sincere.
Valid point but still not wise.
Why didn’t you tell me that your mother was in charge here?
Is it important? Don’t women hold office on your world?
They do, but generally, if one is bringing someone to meet a familial relation, there is a moment where they inform the person they are introducing to reduce tensions. Mothers are protective of sons when strange women are around. The stranger the woman, the more hostile a mother is to her.
Two of the guards laughed against her shields, and Tyvor went silent as they swam out of the meeting place and up toward a mountain rising from the deep. They followed the slope upward until the sunlight showed the surface, and still, they continued to rise.
Breaking the surface was a shock. One moment they were underwater, and the next, they had shattered the surface and were heading toward a floating dock that had merely been a line in the water a minute earlier.
The Salassians launched easily out of the water, but Skiria had to haul herself upward one inch at a time until Tyvor reached down to lift her out of the sea.
The dock was shifting and rocking under her feet. A guard reached out to steady her, and she smiled briefly at him.
His helping hand to her elbow shifted to a supporting hand at her back, and Tyvor jerked her toward him. He drained his gills and said, “Enough, Rasko. She has just arrived.”
The guard drained his own gills. “She started it.”
Skiria blinked. “What did I start?”
Tyvor looked smug. “See? She doesn’t even know our ways yet. You could have made an incredible gaffe.”
The guard darkened dramatically, a deep purple rush through the paler sections of skin.
Tyvor kept his hand on hers and tugged her along the dock toward a small house built into the hillside of a very pretty island. Flowers bloomed and a small waterwheel churned tirelessly on the side of the building.
“The waterwheel is your power supply and it runs all the equipment in the study. You will be able to contact anyone you wish as well as receive the basics in Citadel training.”
Her group eased down the dock and walked up the pathway to the house. The guards remained outside while Tyvor showed her her new home.
Skiria looked around the cottage with its neat bed, small kitchen filled with a food dispenser that Tyvor showed her how to use, and the study with the com systems that could call anywhere she could think of. If only she had someone to call.
Chapter Four
The first two days she was on Salass, Tyvor checked in on her for an hour. After he had assured himself she was doing well, he started to skip to every three days.
Skiria enjoyed being by herself with no other minds in the area. She could expand her thoughts as much as she wanted and nothing got in her way. It was on the seventh day on Salass when she got her first call. The origin point was hidden, but the woman floating in the tank on the screen was definitely Resicorian.
Skiria sat and stared at the woman in the screen. “Um, hello?”
“Hello, Skiria Linz. I am the Archive. I am just calling to check on you.”
“Archive?”
The woman bobbed in the liquid that held her and she smiled. “Indeed. When you have been filing requests for information, they have been going through me.”
“You are from Resicor.”
“Good eye. Yes, I am. I was removed quite some time ago and have made a place in the Alliance and have been assisting my home with its new phase of life.”
“You are in touch?”
The woman inclined her head. “I am. She has never left me.”
It was when she tilted her head that Skiria saw the ports and cables implanted in the woman’s skull.
“What did they do to you?”
“Nothing that I did not ask for. I requested these links so that I could be of use to my people. This is my destiny and I have enjoyed watching the men and women of Resicor come out to play with the other species.”
Skiria blinked in surprise. “You have been watching?”
The Archive shrugged and raised her hands. “It is what I do. All the inform
ation regarding the children of Resicor runs through my mind. Several of those removed are my descendants, so I have a vested interest in remaining as the main conduit of their activities.”
“How are you speaking?”
“My thoughts are being transmitted to your com unit and it is translating the impulses into something you can hear. You will get used to the technology soon enough. I have noticed the speed with which you are absorbing your information and you will soon be ready for assignments with the Citadel.”
That got Skiria’s attention. “Assignments?”
“We got you out, now you are going to continue your work for the freedom of others. You have been given a task, and you will soon know what is being asked of you.”
Skiria sat back and looked at the other woman. “This is my warning.”
Archive smiled. “You are very bright. Yes, this is your warning. You will soon meet the Salass Avatar and everything is going to go a little wild before it gets better.”
“Why?”
The woman grinned. “You now have my direct information in your system. Call me anytime. I am always available.”
With no more information than that, the screen went dark.
She sat back and exhaled heavily. She hated surprises when they involved the word wild.
Skiria ran her hands through her hair and headed out to stand on the dock and listen to the waves. In the distance, she could see large creatures rising and falling in the light of the setting sun. Salass was a lovely world; the water had a purple tint that made the depths of the colour strange and wonderful every time she stood out on her long dock.
She stood out in the fading light until the cooling air made her shiver. The touch of the wind on her cheek was her only indication of ambient temperature.
Bubbles warned her that she was about to have guests, and she stepped toward the shore quickly to give them plenty of room to land.
Tyvor and the guard chorus shot out of the water and landed on the dock, sending it swaying. They looked a little surprised to see her, and Tyvor started talking before he cleared his gills. The gurgling was a little peculiar.
