Our day started early. We ate breakfast at the symposium, outdoors in the inner courtyard of the university that hosted the event. At least, the rest of the team got to eat their breakfasts. I felt like a piece of rare pottery, passed from one off-planet anthropologist and scholar to another, constantly barraged with questions. I gave up trying to be polite and not eat in front of anyone, and snatched a few bites and sips while my interrogators spewed their questions. I ended up throwing out most of my meal when we filed into the lecture hall for the first presentation of the day.
Fortunately, I wasn't required to speak or even be on stage until that afternoon. We sat together as a group and made notes on all the wild theories presented by the various doctors attending the symposium. Some of them were close enough to the truth of our culture and beliefs and heritage, I felt encouraged that yes, Gemar and the rest of the Commonwealth would soon be ready to accept Hoveni openly living among them. Other presentations offered theories so ludicrous, it was a struggle not to laugh. Especially the half-hour presentation theorizing exactly how Hoveni shifted shape, and the extra organs our bodies “logically” possessed to make that possible.
Soolyn laughed aloud when the presentation criticized the special effects on Hoven Quest as highly improbably. It was a “known fact” that the biological function of shifting shape required time and enormous expenditures of energy and could not be accomplished in a few breaths, in hiding, without attracting dangerous attention. The lecturer, a doctor from the Conclave who supposedly had spent his life studying the Hoveni—how, I wondered, when he had never set foot on Gemar?—actually had the gall to step to the edge of the platform and shake his finger at our team and scold us for “perpetuating fallacies for the sake of dramatic necessity."
I wanted so very badly to ensure that he would be present the first time a Hoven shifted shape in public. Having run into hard-heads like him before, I imagined him standing there and loudly proclaiming that the Hoven wasn't a true Hoven because she was doing it wrong.
“Stop thinking so loud,” Kel whispered, leaning toward me, so close our heads touched. “I can hardly keep a straight face as it is."
I slapped his hand, which lay on the armrest between us. He snorted, and twisted his hand around to catch mine. He held my hand for the remainder of the lecture, and it was very nice.
During the break for lunch, we were lucky enough to be seated instead of ‘grazing', as Soolyn called the buffet breakfast. That gave me a chance to actually eat before I was surrounded by more academics trying to pick my brain before the formal question-and-answer session started. It irked me when several of the learned doctors admitted they hadn't bothered to read my dissertation on Hoveni history and culture, then had the arrogance to insist that I had to be mistaken about a vast majority of my theories. How could they be sure I was wrong when they didn't even know what I wrote?
I wished Uncle were there, just so we could laugh together at the pompous know-it-alls, or at the very least, he could make me laugh so I wouldn't explode with frustration.
Kel held my hand under the table, squeezing it when my current interrogator grew particularly unbearable.
If what we had between us wasn't fixation, it was close enough to suit me. I had no idea how I would have survived, without Kel to support me just by being there, all through that miserable lunch period.
The afternoon lectures were more of the same, a combination of frighteningly and encouragingly accurate presentations, mixed with idiocy. It was a good thing some of the presentations were limited to half an hour. I was even more grateful when we had an hour break between the last session and my question-and-answer period.
“Mistress Fyx.” The man who approached me looked like the standard Upper University lecturer; lean face, stooped shoulders, frayed cuffs on his dull brown robe over an even duller gray one-piece. Still, something about him made the hairs prickle on the back of my neck.
“I'm sorry.” I tried to smile, and wondered where Kel had vanished to. He had stayed at least within eyesight all morning. “If we were introduced, I don't remember your name."
“Understandable. There must be at least three hundred of us here.” He nodded and looked me over, head to foot.
Usually, that glance made me angry, because it was the gaze of a man who only saw me as a female put on the planet to either entertain or serve him. This professor, who still hadn't given me his name, looked me over like a scientist studying a specimen. I didn't like it.
Kel, where are you? I needed him, and if the growing bond between us was going to be any use, now was the perfect time. He could think of something to say to ward off this professor before he became unpleasant.
That was all I expected from this stranger with his superior, smug expression. He was going to be nasty and get his shots in before the question-and-answer session, and prove to himself that he knew far more than I did about the Hoveni and Gemar, though he probably hadn't stepped foot on Gemar until he arrived for the symposium.
“I'm curious about your name. I understand that Amaxus Fyx, the Tri-V executive, is your maternal uncle. Is it the common practice on Gemar to take the matriarchal name, rather than the patriarchal?"
“My father came from Entribi, where it's the custom to follow both matriarchal and patriarchal lines. My brothers carry his family's name, while I took my mother's.” I wanted to ask why this was so important to him, but the sooner I could cut off the conversation, the better I would feel.
Where are you, Kel?
I heard his voice, softer than a whisper, and a sensation like someone had tapped on my shoulder. Turning to look, I saw Kel trying to get past three men dressed like the professor, who still hadn't told me his name. They kept maneuvering to step in front of him. Even from ten meters away, I could tell his smile was forced and his fists were clenched and his whole body language showed frustration. He managed to take two steps toward me, and the trio got in front of him again, talking rapid-fire, sometimes two or all three at once. What did they want?
“It's a curious name. Not Gemaran, is it?"
“Very old Gemaran. From before the Downfall. Excuse me, but I'd like to get something to drink before I have to speak.” I nodded and smiled and started to turn away.
“Short for Melafyxia, perhaps? An ancestress?"
“Where did you hear—"
I looked in his eyes and knew in that moment I had made a major error. I should have acted like I had never heard the name before. His hard, brown eyes lit with triumph. Nasty triumph. His arm moved, close against his side, and I didn't waste time looking down to see what he drew from the pocket of his robe.
“Set'ri!” I shouted in the sonic range, and prayed Garan wore the earpiece the Scouts had promised would let him hear in our extended speaking range. I turned to run. The professor grabbed my arm.
“Kendle!” Kel shoved his way through the three men blocking him.
Something hard hit the back of my head and I went down, half-stunned. I fell sideways as my knees hit the ground and the professor didn't let go of my arm, wrenching it. The people around us shouted. I looked up and saw the gun the professor aimed at my face. The wide muzzle told me this was a weapon meant for destruction, not for stunning.
Kel shouted, his voice changing to a roar as he leaped and shifted to a vestrig in mid-air. His claws hit the professor and his teeth grabbed hold of the gun as it went off. Fiery projectiles sprayed everywhere. People screamed. I smelled burning and blood.
The professor went down, eyes wide in disbelief. Kel dug his claws into him, ripping his chest open. He didn't wait for the professor to go limp, but turned and raced after the three men who had been in his way just a few moments ago. They tried to flee the courtyard, where everyone had gone to take a break, but the crowd of onlookers and more people running up to investigate the fuss made it impossible for them to escape. People scattered, making it easy for Kel-vestrig to catch up with them. He knocked one man flat and left him lying still on the pavement while he wen
t after the second.
“Stop or I'll fire,” Garan shouted, halting the third man. He aimed a Scout-issue weapon at him. A nasty smile creased his face as he watched Kel run the second man to the ground and knock his feet out from under him with a long sweep of his tail. “Do you surrender, or do I let him have you?"
All this took maybe thirty seconds. I barely got back up to my feet and stumbled away from the bleeding, torn carcass of the professor—whose name I still didn't know—when Soolyn and Regina and the others fought their way through the crowd to join me.
Peacers came through the crowd, all pointing their multi-darts at Kel.
“He's on our side,” Garan said. “Restrain these three, will you?” His nasty smile stayed on his face as he waited for the four Peacers to bring out manacle strips from their utility belts and bind the wrists and ankles of the three sobbing, shaking, white-faced prisoners. Kel walked a circle around them, teeth bared, swinging his tail in an arch wide enough to keep people from coming to their rescue.
There had to be more of them, I suddenly knew. Four Set'ri, invading a gathering of this size, was too small a force. They needed more backup and support to get away with kidnapping or even murdering the guest speaker. If they suspected that I was Hoven, then they had to guess I would have others with me.
“There have to be more of them,” I said as I walked over to join Garan.
“All the doors are locked,” he said, and tapped the thread-thin speaker wire that attached to his helmet. He had been in touch with the university security this whole time, I assumed.
All this time, I saw people bring out recorders and point them at the bloody scene in the open circle in the center of the pavement. How many of them, I wondered, had been quick enough to catch Kel shifting to vestrig? I looked at Garan and he nodded.
“They're secure, Kel,” he said. “Time to face the music."
Several people screamed as the vestrig reared up on his hind legs and melted back into Kel. More recorder wands and boxes came out. I wondered if we could confiscate or at least wipe the recent memory of all those devices before we released the innocent bystanders. But would it do any good, if even one or two of them had broadcast ability and they had already sent the images to someone outside the university?
“Music is fine,” Kel said. “Just as long as it's Hovenu music and not Set'ri.” He grasped my shoulders and turned me to face him. “Are you all right?"
“You heard me call you.” It was a stupid thing to say, because the answer was quite obvious. I grinned shakily and nodded.
“I'd hear you if you were in another solar system,” Kel growled, and wrapped his arms tight around me.
Soolyn was wrong. Kel knew exactly the right words to say to court me.
* * * *
Thanks to those multiple recording wands, capturing the short, deadly struggle from dozens of angles, we had vivid proof that the professor—who, it turned out, had stolen his credentials and murdered the real Upper University professor—fully intended to kill me. His weapon was an acid-pellet gun, designed specifically to shred flesh and break bone and kill in great pain.
The three men with him were frightened and angry enough to admit they were Set'ri. Their mission was to destroy the leader of the Hoveni infestation—me, the queen of a hive insect race—and capture my underlings to take to their headquarters for questioning and examination. Garan was in immediate contact with his father, Commander Cole, who had made himself Uncle's personal guardian. Before the Peacers finished questioning us and started examining and clearing all the witnesses at the disrupted symposium, Uncle, Chiara and all our inner circle people were safely on their way up to a Scout Corps battleship in orbit around Gemar.
“When are you going to say you told us so?” Kel asked, when Garan finally joined us in the faculty lounge, where the Peacers had put us for safekeeping.
“Scouts never say that. We hate being right about things like this,” Garan said with a tired, bitter smile. He sank down on the couch and reached for the pot of Chorillan silverleaf tea someone had thoughtfully provided for us.
We had all sorts of gourmet snacks and the faculty lounge facilities provided us access to all the news networks, entertainment channels, even isolation booths with programmable environments for relaxation. I hadn't explored the whole room yet because, quite frankly, I rather enjoyed sitting tight against Kel holding his hand, with his other arm wrapped tight around me. I didn't want to let go of him and was very glad he didn't show any signs of wanting to let go of me. Having my life threatened twice in the space of just a few lunars was a little more often than I liked.
I had the feeling that our luxurious accommodations were an effort to placate us. It was one thing for these academics to talk about the Hoveni as an ancient cultural phenomenon and to bemoan the cruelty and narrow-mindedness of the Set'ri who hunted us to apparent extinction. It was another thing altogether to learn the Hoveni and Set'ri were both real, and still engaged in the ancient war for survival. Our hosts were probably delighted, stunned, terrified and horror-stricken in turns. What were they going to do with us, after all?
“However,” Garan continued, after he took a long drink of his tea, “we do need to make some fast decisions. We caught at least twenty different signals leaving the university right after we had the Set'ri restrained, when people started realizing they weren't going to be allowed to leave right away. Some that we tapped were requests for legal help, others were sent to four different news agencies. Sorry, Kel, but I think today's performance is going to upstage everything you've done for the past two years."
“Worth it,” Kel growled, and raised our joined hands to his lips, to kiss my knuckles.
I had the sneaking suspicion that my hormones were in full swing without my permission at that point. The touch of his lips against my skin made me shivery inside in a strange, new way I liked very much.
“By now, half of Gemar is getting the news that Hoveni are real and alive and well. That's fine, up to a point.” Garan bowed his head to study his cup. He looked tired.
“You didn't track all the signals that went out today, did you?” I guessed.
It made sense. If I was going into a crowded area to take out an enemy and capture others, I'd want communications gear that no one could block or trace, so if something went horribly wrong, I could warn my confederates.
“Exactly.” He raised his head and met my gaze. “You can bet the Set'ri are mobilizing. Right now, my father is talking to Master Fyx, persuading him to make a statement to broadcast to the entire planet, telling your entire history as simply and as quickly as possible. You have to swing the people to your side right from the beginning, because that little skirmish outside was the first battle in a war. And if we don't end it quickly, it might never end."
* * * *
Uncle, it turned out, hadn't been spending all his free time the last few lunar-quarters preparing for the wedding. He and Commander Cole had been assembling a recording against just such a time as this. Looking back, it only made sense that the Set'ri were going to try something very nasty, very soon. Uncle set things up so that if something did happen, it would be very public. He just hadn't anticipated the very public ruckus happening around me.
By the time Garan got permission to shuttle my team up to the Scout Corps battlecruiser Justice, Uncle had already contacted his many friends at most of the networks across Gemar. I was still in the medical bay, getting my bruises treated, when the broadcast went out planetwide.
Silena Cray, the oldest member of the inner circle, narrated in her soft yet majestic voice, as images slowly scrolled through the history of the Hoveni. Some were line drawings or still images recorded before the Downfall, carefully preserved by my ancestors. Others were images put together for Hoven Quest, to teach Hovenu history to Gemar through entertainment. The broadcast ended with images from the attack that afternoon, slowed down and enhanced so the entire planet could see the cold fury on the Set'ri's face, the killing weapon a
imed at me, and how quickly Kel had reacted to protect me. Funny, but I couldn't even be embarrassed when the last image was of Kel holding me tight and close.
Uncle knew his art, after all. He knew how to sway the emotions and put ideas into people's minds. I was biased, of course, but I thought he had done his finest work yet in that broadcast. Even taking into account the fact that the fate of an entire race rested on his powers of persuasion, I was still moved and encouraged.
“Do you think it worked?” Kel said, when we all gathered in the lounge area given over to our people on board the Justice.
“It doesn't really matter right now, does it?” Uncle said. “Our lives as we knew them are effectively over. Tomorrow is a new day, a new history for our people.” He reached out and caught hold of Chiara's hand and drew her down onto the couch next to him. “If we have to go to another world to be safe, so be it. We've done all we could do."
“You realize, don't you, that you lost your job today?” Chiara said.
Kel gave her a confused frown for about two seconds. I caught on before he did, and I had to laugh. It was such a small concern against the fate of our entire race. Kel returned my grin, and mimicked Uncle a moment later, sitting down on the couch facing him and Chiara, and pulling me down with him. He did one better than Uncle, though, because he pulled me down to sit on his lap. I liked it. Soolyn and Regina laughed at the shock on everyone else's faces.
Chiara's teasing smirk fell off her face.
“Is there something you two want to tell me?” Uncle sounded very quiet and controlled. He never got angry, as far back as I could remember, but I had never heard this tone of voice, either.
“Uncle, I think we need to revise our understanding of Hovenu physiology,” I said. “I think Kel and I are fixated. We've been sharing dreams, and today, I was able to call him before the trouble started."
Hoven Quest Page 18
