Jahir closed his eyes and sank past his cousin's aura, to the level of thoughts and then past them without pausing to read them. What he was seeking was closer to what he wanted when working with wet victims, a subconscious fretwork of impulse and light.
It stung him when he touched it. He snatched his ephemeral hand back.
/Arii?/
/Not harmed. I continue./
A sense of uncertainty, but Vasiht'h strengthened his hold on the outer world, keeping them both anchored in this darkness, one they perceived only on the insides of their own eyelids. So easy for it to slip away… but Jahir dove and found pain, whispered songs to it: calm. Numbness. A lack of alarm. Soothing, where there was irritation. Building walls where he found stubborn defiance. How long would any of this last? Would it even work?
When he pulled back he was exhausted. There was a hand over his, and it was warm on cool fingers.
/Did it work?/ he asked, forgetting to ask aloud.
"It worked," Lisinthir said, quiet. He lifted Jahir's cold hand to his and kissed the fingers, reverent. In their tongue, "Beautiful healer," spangled in gold and white.
Jahir flushed. "I don't know how long it will last."
"I am grateful for even a short respite." Lisinthir sat up. He pulled Vasiht'h over and hugged him too, kissed the top of his head. "I thank you also, arii."
Flustered, Vasiht'h said, "You're welcome."
Lisinthir chuckled. "Did you think I touched only in extremis? It's far more gratifying for pleasure."
"I can't argue that," Vasiht'h said. The effervescence in the mindline had hints of bemusement and shy pleasure and confusion and Jahir enjoyed it all. Over Lisinthir's arm, the Glaseah eyed him and said, /You are having too much fun./
/I think we are owed a little fun for living with this situation./ He switched to speech. "If you are feeling well enough, the Captain has asked for your aid."
"That I can do, and be grateful for a task. I am ill-suited to idleness." Lisinthir pushed himself upright, and from there to his feet. He paused to roll one shoulder, fingers gliding along the upper edge of the joint. "I suppose I should be glad you haven't ripped my only remaining shirt."
Jahir caught Vasiht'h's sharp glance out of the corner of an eye and managed to ignore it. "You could borrow one of mine if necessary."
Lisinthir snorted. "You are taller than I am, and broader through the shoulder, so unless this vessel has a tailor I think I'll make do."
"And you will wear our attire?" Jahir asked, careful of the words. In their tongue, "Will you call yourself one of us again, then?"
Lisinthir sighed and let a hand drift over the edge of Jahir's face, along the temple, near the hairline, stopping to push a few strands behind the ear. What a strange intimacy, to also be so familial. To be neatened like a child, or like a sibling. "I never stopped being one of you." He smiled a little. "Besides, it's wise to dress as you want people to treat you. The Captain expects an Eldritch ambassador. I'm not sure he will respect someone in the relative dishabille of a dragon."
"I don't know," Vasiht'h said. "Lots of Pelted races wear less."
/You are not fooling anyone with your nonchalance, arii./
Vasiht'h's smug amusement burbled like a creek at the ankle. /Clothing's for special occasions./
"Many Pelted races do wear less," Lisinthir agreed, tapping Vasiht'h on the top of the muzzle twice, and the Glaseah's startlement made Jahir hide a laugh. "But Fleet requires a uniform, and to others in Fleet, proper dress is a signal of trustworthiness. In my own quarters, I'll go as nearly nude as I like. Among others, I will dress to ensure the proper response."
"And when we fight the Chatcaava?" Jahir asked.
"Then I will wear the Eldritch garb." Lisinthir smiled. "And you will ask me why, and I will tell you one answer to distress: because you don't have Chatcaavan garb, and if I can use our similarity to fool them into a mistake, I will do it. And I will tell you another to comfort: I have spent months fighting someone whose only aim was my humiliation and submission, not my death. Being naked then meant I was scraped and bruised and bled, but not destroyed. But if I am to go among people who will not be so careful of such distinctions, then a few layers of clothing between their talons and my skin will be welcome. And if they snag their hands in the velvet and are thrown off balance for a moment... a moment is all I need."
"Practical," Vasiht'h said.
"Survival makes everyone practical," Lisinthir observed. "I go to change. And cousin—you I expect after my session with the Captain and his crew. We have a practice to observe."
"Of course," Jahir murmured.
Vasiht'h watched him go, then muttered, /Unstoppable./
/He would not have accomplished all that he has if he were otherwise./
CHAPTER 11
Watching Lisinthir coach the Fleet officers for their performance didn't make Vasiht'h trust him any less... but it was still appalling. "No," he said to Cory. "You're breathing too evenly. Spend a few moments jogging in place if you must, but you have to be fighting to keep from gasping in. If you can manage the faintest of shudders on the exhale, so much the better." And to Triona, "Can you pinch your ears? If their exposed skin is flushed, it will make you look frightened."
/Are the Chatcaava going to notice these things?/ Vasiht'h asked, struggling to pack his distress down where the mindline wouldn't find it.
/Since the beginning of time, predators have been reading prey for signs of fear and injury,/ came the subdued response. /Never doubt that they will know. Perhaps not consciously, but they'll know./ A flare of anger, low and wreathed with pain. /They have hunted us for prey long enough./
They were sitting at the back of the bridge, silent guardians over the health of the ambassador whose knowledge was worth more to the Alliance than any of their lives. That was as it should be, Vasiht'h knew, though it was an unfamiliar and uncomfortable thought. He recognized it because he'd picked it from the mind of every Fleet officer they'd ever helped in their practice: that they would die for the safety of the Alliance and its peoples. The Glaseah honored that conviction, and knew he should be feeling in his bones....
....but he didn't.
The worst of it was that he could sense that selfless core in Jahir. His partner might protest that he fled his homeworld to get away from that waste, from violence and pettiness and unnecessary death. But since their very first meeting, Vasiht'h had tasted the depth of the conviction in Jahir's soul. His partner could understand dying so that others might live, could see himself doing it. His partner had in fact come a little too close to doing that within a few years of their acquaintanceship. Jahir might not have a fighter's instincts, and his revulsion for violence was unquestionable to someone who shared his thoughts in a communion more intimate than anything short of the Goddess's omniscience. But there were things Jahir valued above his own life—abstract ideals, not just people.
Vasiht'h didn't think he'd realized until now just how different that made them. Oh, he could imagine doing anything to protect the people he loved. His family. Jahir. Even his patients. But to throw himself into a war between political entities because a queen had said they should?
He had promised himself to his partner's side, in life... and in death too, because he knew he would die long before Jahir did. But he'd imagined his service entailing something a little less dangerous. To build, rather than defend. To return to the Eldritch homeworld, maybe, have children, teach them how to look out for Eldritch of their own. That was work for a Glaseah, and this Glaseah in particular. Flitting around the border looking for trouble... Goddess, he hoped that wasn't what the Queen was expecting of him. Surely it wasn't; she'd seemed far too knowledgeable about the Alliance's races to think that a fitting use of his talents.
No, the problem was what use she thought would suit Jahir's talents. And where Jahir went, Vasiht'h had to go. For his own sanity.
It didn't help that his revulsion at Lisinthir's matter-of-fact manipulation was no obstacle
to Vasiht'h's awareness of his magnificence. Jahir's cousin was a splendid predator, the wolf that defended his adopted bipeds from the bears in the woods. There was no mistaking Lisinthir for anything tame, and it was a relief to have a killer like that on your side. As Triona had observed days ago, the Ambassador had not yet stood down from the hyper-vigilance that had kept him alive in the Empire, and he was using those skills now to direct a play of staggering mendacity. How carefully he placed everyone in relation to each other, speaking authoritative words about how sitting closer together would make them seem more in need of comfort. His command of this particular psychology was easily the equal to anything Vasiht'h and Jahir had ever learned, and all of it was intuitive, taught in the most dangerous of classrooms, where mistakes had earned him wounds so egregious even modern healing couldn't erase the evidence of their creation. When at last Lisinthir stepped back and indicated they should begin recording, the results were shocking. Even Vasiht'h, poorly educated as he was in the predator's lexicon, could read the defeat and fear and nervousness engineered into the three women's performance.
"Well done!" Lisinthir said when they'd concluded. "But I think it could use adjustment."
So it went, and the two of them had to suffer through all the revisions. Bad enough when Lisinthir alone was doing the work. When the officers became intrigued and started adding their own suggestions, it became nightmare fuel. Vasiht'h resisted the urge to back away and instead did his best not to listen. This was what the Chatcaava wanted out of their prisoners. This is what they would be—really be, not acting, but feeling!—if they were themselves captured! How could they be so blasé about it?
/They're not./ Jahir's tone was gentle but there was no yielding in it. /But they've been trained to face this fear all their careers./
/It's horrible./
Jahir's face was impassive as he watched one of the women adjust the collar of Cory's uniform so it showed a little more of her throat. Even the link between them remained too quiet for Vasiht'h to sense anything. /Yes./
...but that's life, is how Vasiht'h imagined that sentence ending. Some other life the Glaseah had never been exposed to, but that was fundamental to other people, people who lived on the borders, people who lived in cultures like Jahir's. People who still knew privation and civil unrest and crime, who feared the sky above them because it contained pirates and slavers and dragons. Vasiht'h rubbed his arms, trying to smooth down the fur.
He wanted to ask Jahir if the Eldritch thought less of him for being unwilling to give his life up for any of this, but he was afraid of the answer. And had he been impatient with Jahir for being unwilling to admit to his own needs? The Goddess, Vasiht'h thought, pained, was a mistress of teaching through example.
Eventually, Jahir would find out. Little things, ephemeral things, those could be hidden from the depth of their link. So could old things, matters put to rest so long ago they no longer surfaced where the conscious, active mind could reveal them. But a problem this frightening and new....
Vasiht'h knew that Jahir would still love him. The possibility he couldn't bear was that Jahir would no longer respect him. As they waited for Lisinthir to finish with his task, Vasiht'h crossed his paws at the wrists to keep from chafing them together.
There was in these Fleet women a latent aggression that was deeply pleasing. Triona in particular, once he'd pricked it to the surface... her suggestions, fueled by her knowledge of trauma care, were quite inspired. The matter needed almost three hours, but at the end of it they had a good edit of a transmission that would lull any Chatcaava. Lisinthir would bet his life on it, and in fact was, and all the lives in his care.
He hoped they'd have time to send out at least one more; it would give them time to develop the story of the damaged courier, its plight growing more desperate and its crew more vulnerable. Perhaps some new flaw in the Engineering department could necessitate another cry for help on the heels of the first? He would have to discuss it with the Captain later. For now, he had an appointment. Stopping before his therapists, he said, "Now would be a good time, yes? You don't have your own duties for another few hours."
Jahir rose with commendable alacrity. Vasiht'h followed, but a heart-beat later, an asynchronicity that caught his attention. Usually they moved in tandem, their bodies reflecting the psychic link. In the past days when there had been pauses, they had been the result of Jahir's reticence... now it seemed the other way around. What new stress had arisen to disturb the Glaseah? Lisinthir hoped he hadn't catalyzed this one as well. He no longer liked the idea of causing his cousins—for so he must call them both, given Vasiht'h's adoption—distress.
"We're free for now, yes," Jahir said. "You orchestrated that well."
"I had good material to work with," Lisinthir answered, flashing a grin over his shoulder at the women, who laughed. They were flushed with their own success and fierce with pride and a hunter's eagerness. He found it delicious.
"I hope Fleet finds us first," Vasiht'h muttered.
"So do we all. But we must plan for the worst contingency as well as the best."
"Is it time for his feeding?" Vasiht'h asked.
"It is. I should fetch it—"
"I'll go."
Lisinthir watched the Glaseah jog away, then glanced at his cousin and lifted his brows.
"Yes?"
They were leaving the bridge, but Lisinthir switched to their tongue anyway, for the guarantee of privacy. "Usually that sort of conversation takes place without words. Is there aught amiss between you and your beloved?"
The skin near Jahir's eye tightened, a flinch Lisinthir glimpsed in his peripheral vision. In shadowed mode, his cousin answered, "This situation places new strains on us as people, as one must expect."
There was pain there he found he didn't want to disturb... and that, at last, told him how much he'd come to care for Jahir Seni Galare and his Vasiht'h. Lisinthir suppressed his sigh and found some humor in the situation. He was nothing if not a consummate survivor. To be purposeless was to court suicide, so he had not only resurrected the one he'd thought lost to him, he'd found people to cherish while he went about it in exile. Was it the Imthereli in him that made him so resistant to his own destruction? Or was it the Chatcaavan self he'd embraced that resulted in this indomitable will?
Perhaps there had never been much difference between the Eldritch and the Chatcaava at that. They were both savages in a world pacified by the Alliance. Their relationship had been inevitable, given that: they understood one another in a way the tame and rich Pelted never would.
In the gym, Lisinthir doffed the coat and stripped off the shirt before bringing Jahir the staff. Grasping it, his cousin said, "Do you really not feel the cold?"
Lisinthir kept his own grip on the staff just for the pleasure of holding his cousin near. "Once I start moving I'll be fine."
"You should eat first."
"As soon as your beloved arrives with the vial," Lisinthir promised. "Until then, you could nourish me with a kiss?"
Jahir's sigh held too much humor for true frustration. "Are you always so flirtatious?"
Lisinthir glanced at the ceiling, maintaining his nonchalance. "I was expecting psychoanalysis on my use of salacious commentary as a way to deflect attention or dispel stress... is it forthcoming?"
His cousin shook his hand loose from the staff. "You can't help yourself. Always with the positioning."
"Footwork is very important," Lisinthir agreed. "One must control the ground if one wishes to prevail over one's enemies."
"And those of us who are not your enemies?"
"Sometimes still wish to be prevailed over." He grinned and kissed his cousin on the cheek, very proper and very cool, as if they were rare friends of long acquaintance. Through the touch he could taste Jahir's frustration with the chastity of it.
"Tease," Jahir murmured, shading it carmine and carnal and putting a touch of a husk in it.
Lisinthir paused to enjoy the rush of want that elicited and
chuckled, cupping his cousin's jaw. "How quickly you learn." Such a pleasure, feeling the warmth of skin beneath fingers. How had he lived before the Chatcaava had forced him to use all his talents to their fullest? "But first, we have this small matter to attend to." He tapped the staff. "Let us do so, then."
"Your meal—"
"We can stop once your beloved arrives with it."
They worked a good ten minutes before Vasiht'h padded into the room, and while Lisinthir didn't hear the apology he made to Jahir he could read it in their bodies. That it didn't dissolve the tension between them mystified him; he maintained a surreptitious watch on the Glaseah as Jahir loaded the pump and used it, and there was no mistaking Vasiht'h's discomfort. Why? When it had been the Glaseah who had pushed him into undertaking Jahir's continuing education?
He had his answer soon enough. Jahir put the tools away and took up the staff again, but instead of moving back onto the mat, he said, "I would make a request."
"Go on?"
"I would like you also to teach Vasiht'h."
The Glaseah froze in place like something nocturnal pinned by a spotlight. There must have been some frenzied communication there, but Jahir ignored it, saying, "If you are willing, cousin."
Lisinthir considered Vasiht'h's stricken expression. Obviously this request had not been made with the Glaseah's consent, which made it debatable whether it could be successful. He could not teach the unwilling. Remembering one of their first conversations, he said in deliberate Universal, "Teaching requires the consent of the taught."
Some Things Transcend Page 23
