"You didn't tell him," the Emperor murmured to her.
The Queen ducked her head, sheepish. "We have been busy?"
"Mmm. Yes. That we have."
"Told me what?" Lisinthir asked, because what he felt in their skins demanded the question.
"That part of our ability to Change involves partial Change," the Queen said. "You know that females cause permanent changes in our offspring... the Emperor told me you learned that at the Source. Did you not think how that might be accomplished? We have to take to ourselves the pieces we want to pass on. Both sexes can do this, my lord, even though the females are the only ones who can pass those changes to their children." When he didn't answer, she dipped down and licked the corner of his mouth, gentle. "We can decide to live as long as you, if we so wish."
His gasp in was so abrupt it felt like a knife. "But I don't know if you can, my lady! The longevity of the Eldritch... it's artificial. Created by machines, not by biology."
"I know that." The Queen said it, and saying it tilted her head, pensive. "I do know that, without knowing how I know. But you are not the only long-lived species in the Alliance. The Faulfenza... their shape feels long and deep. And I am assured there are other aliens I have not yet Touched. If the Faulfenzair span does not suit, I will find another." She gathered his cold hand between hers. "We will not leave you before time, Ambassador. We promise."
"So go to your errand, Perfection," the Emperor said, stroking his hair back from his face. "Speak to your Queen. And then come home to us."
"To stay," Lisinthir whispered, trembling.
"To stay," the Queen said.
He reached for them, and they fell into his arms.
The captain of the Jerisa assigned Sediryl a cabin and access to both bridge and ready room whenever she required it. Nor was she the only one the ship took on: Jahir and Vasiht'h had their own quarters, Qora and the other three Faulfenzair had berthing, and Maia had insisted on tagging along, much to Sediryl's relief. "There's no reason I can't join you," the D-per had said, sitting with her now that she had emitters that could properly shape her solidigraphic form. "I'm home and can inhabit as many nodes as I want. Besides, I have my own reasons for wanting to go back."
"Do you think Crispin returned there?"
"I don't know," Maia said, somber. "That's what I want to find out."
The last person to board was Lisinthir-fashionably late, she thought, except she wasn't sure it was like him to make an entrance. When a yeoman reported his arrival, she called Captain FirstShield and told him he could leave when ready. For the first time since meeting him, she'd heard a note of uncertainty in his voice. "Of course, my lady. As soon as we've sorted out our order of departure."
"All right?" she said, puzzled, but he'd already closed the connection. And puzzled she remained, until a chime at her door opened for her cousin, looking like a cat who'd located every pot of cream in the kitchen. Sediryl set her tablet down and laced her fingers under her chin, lifting her brows. "Should I ask?"
"That would depend on the question," Lisinthir replied, mouth quirking.
"You look happy," she tried.
"That would be because I am."
She sensed she wasn't going to get anything more out of him on that topic, so she tried, "You're late."
"Ah! Yes. I was preparing a gift for you."
Sediryl sat back. "Oh? This should be good."
He smiled. "I rather think so, yes."
"And... are you going to tell me what it is?"
Maia's voice dropped from the ceiling, and Sediryl couldn't tell if the D-per sounded awed or irritated. Maybe something of both. "Does it have something to do with the squadron of Chatcaavan ships that just happened to decide to accompany us?"
"What?" Sediryl asked, sitting up.
"FirstShield's talking to them now. Someone apparently requested them."
Lisinthir was leaning against the wall, arms folded. That, she thought, was definitely a smirk. She could forgive him the smirk, because a squadron of Chatcaavan ships was a significant gift. And also because she wanted to see him kiss Jahir again, so she wanted to stay on his good side. "You're welcome."
Sediryl shook her head, wearing a long face. "Now, cousin. It's in poor taste to reply before thanks have been tendered."
"Ah, of course. Go ahead, then."
She grinned. "Thank you. Also, you're obnoxious."
He bowed with a flourish. "At my lady's service."
"Go settle in," she said. "We'll be there in a few days. Hopefully the system will be clear and we can rescue the slaves and go home."
"I find my hopes are at odds with yours," Lisinthir said. "With the extra ships to hunt with us, I would very much like to find pirates waiting for us." His smile looked more draconic than Eldritch. "But either way we find ourselves prepared."
"Yes," Sediryl said firmly. And more heartfelt, meaning it, "Thank you. Lisinthir... this means a lot to me."
His voice gentled. "I know." With a flash of a grin. "I leave you and your spy to your work."
"Did he just call me a spy?" Maia asked indignantly after the door closed on him.
"You were listening without him knowing," Sediryl pointed out.
"I couldn't let him hold that knowledge over your head like that," Maia said, and Sediryl could imagine her with her nose in the air. "He was enjoying it too much."
Sediryl laughed. "Yes, he was. Deservedly so."
"So... which one do you want?"
"Maia!"
"I know you were dithering before," Maia said. "But now that they're in one place and you can evaluate fairly... or is it going to be both?"
Sediryl touched the data tablet to her brow. "Don't make me bring up Uuvek."
"Ah..."
"Which of you badgered my aunt? My aunt the Queen, may I remind you? Or Empress, now. We have more than one planet."
Maia sounded sheepish. "It... might have been both of us? Also, you're changing the subject!"
"Yes," Sediryl said firmly. "I am."
The journey to the pirate system was short by interstellar standards. It also took far too long for Sediryl. Her cousins and friends did their best to distract her: Qora returned to lead her through more of the Faulfenzair dance forms; Maia told her more about the formation of the Royal Eldritch Navy, and kept her abreast of the developments back on Selnor with the treaty, since the D-per was also there. Her cousins... well. She spent time with them just talking. About their experiences off-world. About their experiences with the war. About what it would be like to return, and what the Eldritch would be like, with Liolesa forcing them into closer communion with the Alliance, and now the Chatcaava.
But at night, when she retired to her bed, the anxiety surged to the forefront, sending tremors through her limbs and blood rushing under the skin of her neck, pulse pounding. What would they find when they slid out of Well? Their vessel could Dust itself, but the Chatcaava couldn't, and refused to. They wanted a fight if fight there was to be had. How many pirates would be waiting for them? How hard would it be to take them down? How many people would die this time?
There was no turning back from this course; she couldn't leave all those slaves behind. But now that she knew how high the cost of battle was, she found herself wrestling with the decision. To ask other people to sacrifice their lives...
Knowing how many people agreed with her that the mission was necessary didn't help. She'd be the one who saw the killing, and the dying. And maybe she would die herself.
Sediryl drew the blankets tighter around her blankets and prayed to be on the other end of this, so she could mourn her dead, embrace the living, and move on.
"We're here, my lady," FirstShield said when the arpeggio dragged her from her fitful sleep.
Sediryl shoved the blankets aside. "I'm on my way."
Even rushing, by the time she arrived the ship and its Chatcaavan escorts had proceeded far enough into the system to have filled the tactical board with detailed imagery. The ship's l
ights were dimmed, and the glow of the squadron as it followed its projected course toward the base cast a bright blue light on the faces of the Pelted studying it.
Sediryl joined the captain, trying for his level of calm assurance. "How does it look?"
"Promising," the Tam-illee replied. "We haven't found any enemy vessels yet. Thanks to the data you and Lieutenant Maia transmitted from the system, we located and destroyed the mines and remote weapons platforms. The latter were offline, though, and the sensor drones are also non-operational." His ears flicked back. "We'll take those aboard for salvage once we're done here, if we have the space."
"Then... there's no one here?" she asked.
"They might be running dark," the Tam-illee answered. "If so, they'll either ambush us at our point of maximum vulnerability, or they'll keep an eye on us until we leave. Depending on how suicidal they are."
"You don't think they'll attack?"
"Not unless the Twelveworld Lord's casualty count was incorrect. There shouldn't be enough of them to give us a fight." The todfox tilted his head. "We could be wrong, of course. We're making a cautious approach."
"Of course," Sediryl said. "May I remain to observe?"
"There's a jumpseat behind the environmental station, my lady. You're welcome to it."
"Thank you."
The journey to the pirate base, in the low lighting with the murmurs of the crew around her and the glowing displays casting their blue and red and amber light, felt like a dream, one stitched through with the tension of a climax Sediryl could sense but not reach. She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she'd brought an extra sweater to wear over her turtleneck; Fleet kept its vessels cold, a tradition the new Eldritch navy appeared to have adopted.
"We've reached Pad distance, sir."
"Anything?"
"No sign of any hostiles. Our allies report nothing as well."
Captain FirstShield nodded. "My lady?"
Sediryl unclipped her restraints and went to join him.
"We're here," he said. "And there's been no opposition. We have no idea how many people are on the base, guarding it, but we have more than enough people to take it."
"Let's go down," Sediryl said. The Tam-illee began to speak. "I'm going, Captain. But if it makes you feel better, I'm taking two Eldritch mind-mages as bodyguards." She thought of Liolesa and managed a smile. "I hear it's quite the thing for royals these days."
He hesitated, then chuckled, quiet. "All right, my lady. If they're anything like Lord Hirianthial, I don't imagine you'll need much more. The team will assemble in Pad Room A."
"Very good," Sediryl said. "Thank you, Captain."
"Be careful, my lady."
Sediryl didn't like the look on Jahir's face when she arrived. "What is it?" she asked.
"We've chosen an empty room to Pad to," Lisinthir said for him. "But it's not the only empty room."
"You think they're hiding?"
"I have not yet met the person who can hide from me," Jahir said. "Not when I'm looking."
"Which is not to say that there isn't a first time," Lisinthir said. "Or a phenomenon we have not yet encountered. But it does not seem promising."
Had Nolan left the base to Crispin to guard? That sounded far more ominous than filling it with pirates. Sediryl set her shoulders. "Let's go find out what's going on."
The assault teams went first; Sediryl found it interesting that these men were led by humans who had apparently enlisted in the Eldritch armed forces, and wasn't that a crazy notion. She would have to sit with Liolesa on her return, learn exactly how extensive the Queen's plans, and the Lord of War's, were. It was enough now to be glad of their expertise, because once she crossed the Pad she could tell by how they moved that they were expert at this work. Her cousins joined her, and Vasiht'h, and Qora and his three Faulfenza who somehow had become her Faulfenza in an evolution she had yet to comprehend.
Being here again... she was already trembling. Lisinthir almost stopped her heart when he touched her shoulder. She looked up at him, wide-eyed.
"Steady, cousin," he murmured. "This time you are not so isolate."
"No," she answered. Deep breath. "No. Let's go find them."
"You remember the way?" Jahir asked.
"I'll never forget the way," Sediryl replied.
Their team cleared the corridors before them, and an easy task that was because the halls were vacant. Nor was it only their part of the base; the Chatcaava reporting in from their sectors had found nothing as well. Every step Sediryl took echoed. Where was everyone? Had the flight to the Twelveworld truly stripped the base? Or had the people left behind on the station fled when the pirate fleet had failed to return?
"Do you suppose..." she said to Vasiht'h, "...you could ask?"
Vasiht'h looked up at the ceiling. "If he was here, he would have said something by now."
"Still."
The Glaseah halted. "Crispin?"
Silence.
"Crispin, it's Vasiht'h."
They all waited. Sediryl counted her heartbeats.
"He could be in hiding," Maia said through Sediryl's telegem, sounding subdued.
"Maybe." Sediryl exhaled. "We're almost there."
The great doors to the cargo bay... they'd dominated Sediryl's nightmares. Walking through these doors and pretending to be fascinated by Kamaney's ‘goods'... her skin went to gooseflesh remembering the strain of it, the way the false smile had felt plastered to her face so deeply she'd been incapable of stopping, even in the privacy of her dreams. But this time, she thought, ignoring the looks on her cousins' faces, seeing them and refusing to understand them. This time, she would walk through these doors wearing her own skin and her own face, and she would do what she'd longed to do from the beginning and free the prisoners.
Their team's lead pressed a palm to the cargo doors and stepped behind the wall as they slid open.
On a vast and monstrous silence.
Sediryl took one step, and then another. And another.
Cages. So many cages. There were people in them. She stopped in front of one, her body beginning to shiver. Reached to touch the hand grasping one of the bars, only to have it crumble under her fingers. She stumbled back. Another step. Another.
She had to keep walking.
Sediryl strode among the cages, faster, looking from one to another. She heard the talk behind her. Failure of the force field that was keeping the vacuum at bay right now, right at this very moment. Exposure to the vacuum of space. Debate about how long. Debate about whether it had been accident or purpose.
She kept going.
Click. Click. Click.
She kept going, until she was running for the center of the cargo bay, and all around her the dead stared, forever trapped in their purgatory, in the hell of waiting for a rescue that had never come. She ran until she almost skidded into the great tanks that had held the Naysha, and the frozen bodies there...
So cold....
She was supposed to have saved them.
So many cages. So many people. All of them dead because she'd failed. Because she'd chosen the best of too many bad choices, and other people had paid the cost.
Sediryl's breath came faster, and faster, and then... and then she screamed...
And set the world on fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
There were stars painted on the ceiling, on a pale blue field. Sediryl blinked sticky lashes until her eyes watered, and the stars remained. Her head felt tender; it made her question her vision. Stars on a blue field... nonsensical. No star was bright enough to be seen in daylight?
Her body hurt. She didn't know why she thought it should hurt worse than it did, but it certainly hurt enough, with that dull throbbing that warned of some deep injury she didn't remember suffering. But she remembered suffering.
She stared for a long time at the blue field, and slept.
When next she woke, her thoughts felt less fettered. She was under a heated blanket and a halo-arch... a
rather significant one, at that. She was also not alone.
"At last," Lisinthir said. "How good of you to wake, cousin."
That should have been teasing. Sediryl didn't like that Lisinthir delivered the line straight, as if he meant it. She turned her head and found him sitting on a stool beside her, a book now resting on his lap. He looked every inch the Eldritch prince, impeccable in a long coat of midnight blue velvet. Its heavy folds rested against the stool, archaic poetry set against modern lines. He shouldn't look so natural in this setting, but like Liolesa he belonged wherever he chose. And he had chosen to be... here?
"What... what happened? Where am I? Can I get up?"
"You may not, no," Lisinthir said. "After you woke briefly yesterday your team issued instructions to those of us who've been keeping you company. You still require observation, so your release is not imminent, I'm afraid. And they would prefer you under the arch."
"What... but... did something happen? To me?"
His pause was delicate. "What do you recall, Sediryl?"
Sediryl said, "We... we went to the pirate base...." She halted abruptly. The empty halls. The cargo bay doors. The cages...
She paled, her hand fisting in the blanket, and not even its warmth penetrated the chill in her fingers.
"So at least that much, I see."
"I was among the cages," Sediryl whispered, forcing herself to continue living the memory. "I ran... and then..." Nothing. A wall. She looked up at him. "I don't know. Except that it was..."
"Cataclysmic," Lisinthir said.
Sediryl whispered, "That's... a strong term."
Lisinthir set the book aside. "Barely sufficient. You set the base afire, cousin."
No. "I did what?"
"Afire," Lisinthir repeated. "You slagged the walls of the cargo bay until they buckled, and the resulting deformation broke the base in several places, and that wrenched it apart. I congratulate you, cousin... you have ensured no pirate will ever use that particular facility again."
"What?" Sediryl whispered. "How... how..."
"With your anger alone, I am guessing." Lisinthir's smile was faint. "I should welcome you to the fold of Galare mind-mages."
From Ruins Page 40
