To Guard Against the Dark

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Jason Morgan. She’d never thought to see him arrive at the shipcity in third-hand spacer gear, without a credit to his name. Damaged goods.

  Lost his ship, The Silver Fox. Destroyed on Stonerim III, she’d heard. As for Sira Morgan, his lifemate and crewmate?

  Some questions, Thel knew, weren’t to be asked.

  “I hired you to help out,” she said. “Tonight, you cover the boards while I get a decent supper. Shouldn’t be more than the scheduled tugs. Best not be a problem.” This with a snap. “You aren’t the only one wanting work.” It was the ugly truth. Dozen a cred on Auord, down on their luck spacers like him, and everyone had tech skills. No wonder recruiters did well.

  His shoulders hunched. Morgan parked the sweeper. “You’re the boss.”

  “That I am. Don’t break the place.” She locked the door behind her.

  Morgan straightened from his slouch the moment he was alone, lips quirked in a half smile. What Thel Masim was? A friend, the best kind. Among spacers, her prickly kindness was as legendary as her memory, not to mention her lack of tolerance for those trying to cheat the system or one another.

  He felt a twinge of guilt as he unlocked the door, then slipped into the still-warm easi-rest. Easy to fall into old habits: find a hole to sleep in, keep away from authority, cautiously approach an old friend. She’d taken one look at him and given him work. He’d not only expected Thel’s trust.

  He’d counted on it.

  Over Huido’s extremely loud protest, Morgan had brought nothing but the bracelet, these clothes, and traded his good boots for a pair with worn soles. Plus his twin sets of little force blades, snicked in their holders at left wrist and ankle, but physical struggle wasn’t the plan. He was here to watch Auord’s shipcity by night.

  This night, in particular.

  Seated, he let his gaze flick from screen to screen, leaving the centermost set to the main thoroughfare from the portcity’s warehouse district. There were other traffic flow stations like this one, but they were automated through the quiet evening hours, their images shunted to Thel’s. From here, Morgan had access to the sprawl of starships between the rugged sea cliffs, the landing field, and the start of permanent buildings.

  Shipcities were dynamic communities, their proportions changing with the ebb and flow of trade as local seasons changed availabilities. They changed with whispers, too.

  The attacks confined to Human worlds hadn’t been a rumor. Small, family-run freighters, with their minimal margins, couldn’t afford trouble. Non-Human systems had seen an upswing in business since. Enough to boost prosperity.

  Even on Auord.

  Uniformed beings oversaw the entrances at every hour, monitoring the comings and goings between ship and portcities for any hint of fee evasion. Smugglers, if they were smart, paid like the rest. The uniforms were the green of Auord’s Port Authority, there not being a current emergency requiring Trade Pact Enforcers, with their distinctive red and black—or gray of battle armor.

  No emergency the planetside Jellies wanted to share, anyway. After Bowman’s comments, Morgan guessed enforcers were less welcome than usual. Which didn’t say much.

  His attention caught, he flipped the feed from an upper screen to the center, leaning forward with a frown.

  A starship sat where it had landed at the near edge of the field, ready to lift without being carried into position by one of Auord’s docking tugs; a privilege granted, or rather afforded, by very few indeed. Put that location together with the ship’s curved design and unusual size?

  “Drapsk.”

  The ship would be crewed by hundreds of impossible-to-tell-apart beings, all of the same highly motivated tribe. Polite to a fault, but Morgan had seen more than one rowdy bar cleared by the entrance of a single little Drapsk, the most inebriated patrons aware the rest wouldn’t be far behind.

  Morgan’s fingers strayed to the metal bracelet on his right wrist. Turned it absently.

  Drapsk could be—and had been—wonderful allies and friends. As easily, they could—and did—thwart the best-laid plans of any rational non-Drapsk for their own mysterious reasons. Random elements, that’s what they were. They shouldn’t be here. Auord wasn’t on any of their routes—the pickings were too lean for such consummate traders.

  Just his luck. He’d hoped to avoid meeting any Drapsk before he was ready. If he ever was. The beings knew of the M’hir, what they called the Scented Way; more importantly, they adored Sira as their Mystic One.

  Maybe they were here for the bertel nut harvest.

  He called up the ship’s public manifest. The Heerala had come here via Plexis. No earlier stops listed, but there needn’t be. Plexis was a port others trusted to be strict with contamination protocols, its atmosphere and resources such as water limited in a way no planet experienced.

  No postings for trade, either desired or offered.

  Again, there needn’t be. The Drapsk weren’t like free traders, dependent on local supply and demand. The Heerala could be here on business of her own, arranged offworld.

  Drapsk didn’t miss an opportunity. That lack of posting?

  Morgan jabbed the vid feed control harder than necessary, resuming his search. Mysterious Drapsk were the worrisome kind—

  “Anything?”

  “Not yet.” He didn’t turn around. “Lock the door.”

  “Done.” Constable Russell Terk grabbed a stool and pulled it close. The legs creaked under his weight; shorter than Morgan, the enforcer was half again as wide, most being muscle.

  Morgan glanced sideways and grinned.

  Gone was the uniform that strained to cover the other Human’s oversized shoulders. Instead, a jacket of some brown scaled hide gave up the attempt, stretched open over an unpleasant swath of shirt printed with gaudy flowers—no, upon close inspection, those were little crustaceans holding claws. A belt with a clasp shaped like a bunch of bertels held up pants that stopped at his ropy calves. The pants sported a ridiculous number of pockets, bulging, no doubt, with the latest enforcer tech.

  To finish, Terk’s thick hairy toes, nails painted a vile orange, protruded from sandals.

  Catching Morgan’s look, he growled, “I’m blending.”

  “I can see that.” The garish, memorable outfit, coupled with that face of harsh angles and perpetually grim expression? Any Auordian, from Port Authority to child, would peg him as a recruiter, out to prey on the shipcity’s dregs.

  Slavers, was the truth of it. Recruiters worked the bars—or hunted in alleys. Whether they drugged a drink or simply stunned a candidate, the result was the same: a one-way trip, sold to any Fringe world desperate for skilled labor.

  Abandoned in Auord’s All Sapients’ District, away from the Clan for the first time in her life and vulnerable, Sira had been swept up by recruiters. It happened moments after she’d accosted Morgan, asking for his help to leave the planet. He’d believed her one of his own, out of work, and sent her on her way with a few credits for food and a bath, and Thel’s name.

  A memory still able to make him wince, though Sira had escaped and made her way to the Silver Fox. And him.

  “I’ve the talent,” Terk claimed modestly. “You, on the other hand, look like a dried-out crasnig dropping. You should eat more.” He leaned forward, risking the stool. “So where do we start looking?”

  Not: where have you been, what happened to you, where’s Sira and her people, how could you have left us mid-battle—questions he’d expected. Had even planned to answer, owing Terk that much and more.

  Either Bowman had briefed her constable, or Terk was being kind.

  Briefing, Morgan decided and relaxed slightly. “I’ve sent a tug to make a pass. It’ll be in position shortly.”

  Meanwhile, little was happening in Auord’s sleeping shipcity, the varied feeds a monotony of vacant shipways, cables, and locked ports. The hour w
as late for business, the portcity frowning on anything that kept spacers out of its entertainment sector, and much too early for those spacers to stumble back to their ships.

  Inside some of those ships, traders with families would be putting their children to sleep, while those scheduled to lift in the morning would run final checks on their cargoes and dig into vistapes for anything pertinent ahead of their next stop. He’d wanted no more than that life until Sira and beyond any imagining? She—the most powerful member of the Clan and leader of her kind—had wanted it, too. What might have been—

  Morgan pulled his thoughts out of that too easy spiral. It led to darkness, and he wasn’t the only one grieving. Terk’s long-time partner, the Tolian Ptr-wit-Whix, had perished in the Assembler attack beneath Norval.

  “Huido told me about ’Whix,” he said. “I’m sorry. He’ll be missed.”

  Predictably, that sympathy received a scowl. “At least the featherhead took his share of Splits with him. M’new partner’s waiting on the Conciliator.”

  Fair enough. “You should have introduced us.” He’d made his own way to Auord, but the Conciliator had shaved that time in half by taking him from Ettler’s to Radulov first. Not that Morgan socialized on the cruiser—Bowman having invited him, politely, to stick to quarters and keep his nose in the newsvids to catch up—but he’d bunked with Terk. “Let me guess. That Neneman wrestler, Chert the Masher Nyquist?” Good choice, if Bowman wanted a matched set.

  “No.”

  A touch too firm, that denial. “Then—” pronouns being tricky beasts, Morgan settled for: “—who?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” in a defensive mumble.

  Curious. “Terk—”

  “Her name is Two-Lily Finelle. Satisfied?”

  A Lemmick. Morgan pressed his lips together. Nonetheless, a tiny huph escaped.

  Terk glared at him. “Twenty years of field experience. Combat rating off the charts. Would have promoted outsystem before now, but not everyone appreciates Finelle’s qualities.”

  Being a Lemmick. The only species in the Trade Pact with a natural body odor so debilitating to the majority of the rest, including Humans, that their Board Member had to don a persona-shield for meetings. Otherwise, no one else would attend.

  He had to know. “What did you do?”

  The enforcer clenched fists half the size of Morgan’s head. “The Neneman was the commander’s first pick. He claimed I insulted him. No sense of humor.”

  Understanding dawned. Morgan hid a smile. Terk mourned ’Whix in his own peculiar way. The problem was, Bowman needed a functional team.

  “Just how many potential partners did you insult?” There wouldn’t be many qualified, not with clearance to work on her personal staff.

  Terk growled in his throat. “Three. Then came Finelle. You can’t,” with real despair, “insult a Lemmick. They expect it. She congratulated me on my originality.”

  Morgan burst out laughing, faintly surprised he still could.

  The other tried to glower, then gave up, sighing with all the air in his cavernous chest. “The commander ordered me to give Finelle a fair trial—in the field, no less. Anyone we’re after will smell us a block away. I expect to be killed in action. Gravely wounded. Maimed! No, killed.” Considering this dire future, Terk shifted; the stool protested with a creak. “Should get a medal anyway,” he concluded gloomily. “Can we get back to business?”

  “You take those,” Morgan said waving to the screens on the right wall, nearest the enforcer. “Sure it’s tonight?”

  “Bowman made sure,” with grim satisfaction. “One of Gayle’s associates on this dirtball planet squealed the buyer accepted delivery of less than the complete shipment. So happens the ship with the final two crates got caught in an unscheduled mole fly inspection. Delayed till today.” Terk’s broad shoulders rose and fell. “Ask me, this is a wilder shot than usual, even for Bowman. The shipment’s routine contraband. The Facilitator won’t show. Why should he?”

  “You might be right,” Morgan replied, carefully noncommittal. If Bowman hadn’t told Terk this wasn’t about the Facilitator—though that ghostly player could well be involved—she’d her reasons, reasons having nothing to do with trust and everything to do with how dangerous the truth was.

  Making Bowman’s confidence a particularly disconcerting gift.

  He’d needed a purpose; she’d offered him one: to find who’d been behind the Assemblers. This shipment—whatever it contained—was proof the aliens hadn’t acted alone. As their bombs exploded, the vast wealth of the Clan had evaporated, sucked from every account and holding by the syndicates. Others had come later, with the skills to thwart official seals. They’d brought grav carts and the tools to open vaults, and might have raided empty Clan homes without being noticed at all.

  But Bowman had been reinstated. Back in charge, she’d had every item in those homes tagged with the latest, undetectable enforcer tracer tech, then waited. Didn’t matter that what was taken hadn’t appeared worth the risk. Oddments of furniture and a few keepsakes. Clothing and some chests full of the Clan version of documents. What did? The tracers reported each item’s journey through a variety of ports, via hands and other appendages, moving in a bizarre number of directions until, ultimately, converging on Auord.

  Where the signals had stopped. Someone had found the tracers and disabled them; “undetectable,” in Morgan’s experience, more a matter of “for how long.” Bowman wanted idents on the ship receiving the cargo and any beings involved. Discreetly.

  “Damn straight I’m right,” Terk stated. “The shipment’s nothing but junk.” He fished in his pockets. “Found this in one of the crates.”

  The crates they were to observe, from this carefully distant, discreet viewpoint, without risking contact.

  “This would be why you’ve a Lemmick,” Morgan commented dryly. Such rash impulses had been ’Whix’s job to contain, whenever possible. No wonder Bowman was desperate to find Terk a partner.

  “No one saw me. The stuff was in the freightyard. So happens—” an unrepentant grin, “—I was, too.” With a grunt of triumph Terk pulled out his find. “See? Junk.” He tossed something small and white to Morgan, who caught it with one hand.

  “You shouldn’t—” The words died in his throat as Morgan found himself holding a waferlike crystal, oval, cloudy, and terribly familiar. “This isn’t junk,” he said after a moment. He lifted his hand, the crystal catching glints from the screens. “I’ve seen one of these before.”

  It had housed Aryl di Sarc’s consciousness until she could enter her great-granddaughter’s—Sira’s—unborn. The baby had been mindless—a Vessel, as the Clan called it—waiting to host a personality.

  Host? Trap was the better word for it, for Vessels were how those from AllThereIs were brought into this universe, Stolen, forgetting who and what they were.

  Terk looked unconvinced. “Looks like a chunk of window plas to me. What is it?”

  “I don’t know what they’re called, but there was a box of these at Norval.” Specifically, in the lab where Sira’s mother, Mirim, had worked with her group of M’hir Denouncers to restore the M’hiray’s past. Sira had shared her memory of being shown the box. Its contents had been found by the group among other relics of Cersi.

  How and why the crystals had arrived on Stonerim III, no one was left to explain. Marcus Bowman had given the M’hiray crates of Hoveny artifacts; maybe one had held a different type of treasure, but his records were gone too, prudently destroyed by Bowman’s grandmother. A family tradition, to act against expectation.

  “Can’t be from there,” Terk protested. “Bowman sealed everything Clan.”

  “Seals can be broken.”

  “I suppose you’d know how.”

  Morgan didn’t rise to the bait, busy studying the crystal. On Cersi, the Vyna had put their dying Adept
s inside such orbs, storing them as their Glorious Dead to live again and again in a sequence of new Vessels. Was he holding such a—a Presence in his hand? Someone who’d last been alive before the Clan entered the Trade Pact?

  If so, they didn’t belong here.

  His fingers were averse to closing over the thing, but he forced them into a tight fist. Bowman would be the first to realize her plan was no longer the priority, in any sense.

  Saving the Trade Pact from another, potentially disastrous, incursion by the entities of AllThereIs was.

  “We have to get the rest.”

  Then he’d deal with what to do with them.

  Interlude

  A WATCHER STIRRED IN ALLTHEREIS, tempted to slip Between, into what the Clan had named the M’hir, to find what disturbed it.

  For that’s what Watchers did. What they were. While Singers flew and created and loved and, yes, lifted their voices, their Song weaving into the dance of the Great Ones, those who Watched paid attention to what was beyond.

  What lived there.

  What might become threat.

  The Great Ones knew about the Watchers, or didn’t; what consciousness they possessed was on another scale than that of Singers. Singers knew, though. After all, Watchers were Singers, too. Most lingered but briefly at the edges of AllThereIs, briefly as measured against the vast movements of the Great Ones, waiting for what only they knew. When done, they returned to add their voices, notes fresh and triumphant, or deep and grim, to the rest.

  Some, a very few, couldn’t let go; they became strange to their fellows and mute. They knew their duty, nonetheless.

  The Watcher who’d stirred settled once more, the temptation passing. It had purpose, here, for it Watched what was new. Not threat.

  Not yet.

  The buds of Between shone with inner light, within each a Singer who’d been Stolen and was now coming home. Each bud grew, walls thinning, as its inhabitant let the minuscule span of their lives in NothingReal fade to memory, supplanted by the joy of remembering what they’d been. What they were.