“And how are you, Zhandar?” Rozhara inquired, once they had seated themselves on a pair of low, soft divans near the windows.
“Fine,” he said shortly, gazing past her to the welter of plants in their self-sustaining beds. The lizhain were looking a bit droopy; he made a note to check on their watering tubes once his session with Rozhara was done. Not that performing such a task was really his responsibility, but it would help to distract him, and he’d been sorely in need of distractions lately.
“Merely fine?” she probed, green eyes keen.
He could sense the worry coming from her, overlaid with a hint of skepticism. They had had this conversation too many times before.
In the past, he might have tried to tamp down his frustration, which he knew must be radiating from him in waves. Now, though, after coming to see Rozhara for nearly a year, Zhandar had decided he wouldn’t bother any longer. This was an exercise in futility, and they both knew it, even if his counselor refused to see that particular truth.
“I am a good citizen of Zhoraan,” he said in ironic tones. “I rise every morning and bathe myself, then go to do the work that benefits everyone who lives in this city. What more is needed?”
“Healing, Zhandar,” Rozhara replied, sadness tinging the word.
“It has been a year. I believe I am as healed as I will ever be.”
Without speaking, she rose from her divan and went over to the window. It was a fine spring day, with lacy bluish-green clouds fanning out across the skies and a bright, fresh breeze playing with the leaves in the garden. And not just Rozhara’s garden, but the gardens on every balcony and rooftop, bringing life and energy to Torzhaan, the capital of their province. Zhandar knew well enough how all those gardens functioned in the living organism that was their city, as it was his task to keep them all running at the optimum levels required for health and vitality.
After a long pause, Rozhara turned back to him, her hands open and turned toward him, a gesture of trust, but also of pleading. “Yours is a loss no man should have to suffer. I understand that. Elzhair is gone, and yet you show no sign of healing, of beginning the next chapter in your life.”
“And what is this ‘next chapter,’ precisely? I have met no one else who is sayara, whose heart speaks to mine. Perhaps I never will. Most of us are blessed to have only one such connection in our lifetime.”
“Most…but not all. Such connections — such second chances, as it were — are rare, but they are not unknown. Of course your chances of meeting someone else who is compatible are lower if all you do is stay here, continuing the same routine, day in and day out. I’ve urged you many times over the last year to take a sabbatical, to travel and open your eyes to new vistas, new situations. And I am urging you again. A fresh perspective can be very helpful.”
Perhaps Rozhara was right, but Zhandar didn’t wish to leave Torzhaan. At least here he had some sort of purpose when he awoke each morning. The city breathed more easily because of his work. That had to be of some value.
He would not admit to Rozhara that he also wanted to stay because here he had reminders of Elzhair around every corner. The botanical gardens where they had walked and talked of his beloved plants, the holo-theater where they went to view compositions made of both light and music. Yes, it was painful to pass by those places and know she was gone, and that the dream they’d discussed so often had died with her, but better that than to be alone in a strange new place, unanchored, with nothing familiar to hold to.
It had been a risk, but one which Elzhair wanted to take. And things had gone well at first — at least she was able to conceive a child, something that fewer and fewer of his world’s women had been able to do. The first few months had been uneventful, the doctors saying that she was healthy and everything was proceeding well.
But then she had fallen ill, the child she carried seeming to sap her strength with every passing day. Although they understood the gravity of what they were asking, Elzhair’s doctors had at last urged her to give up the child, for them to perform the necessary surgery to save her life. She had refused, and told Zhandar that their child was more important than she was, that their child was the future.
He’d pleaded with her, saying that they could try again when she was well. Oh, how he had begged her. He knew their world was going into a decline, and that without enough children, his race might someday cease to exist altogether, but in those last frantic moments, all he could think of was how much he loved her, how his world would end without her by his side. Weighed against that, their child did not seem nearly as important as an existence with Elzhair absent from it.
Being Elzhair — stubborn, wild, passionate — she hadn’t agreed with him, had held onto her life for as long as she could, thinking that if she persisted, their child might be able to survive on his own. In the end, though, she had gone, taking their unborn son with her. And Zhandar had been left with nothing.
“My mind says that you are right, Rozhara,” Zhandar began, the words heavy, slow. She didn’t move, but only remained there by the window, watching him carefully, perhaps in the hope that this time he might tell her something different. “But my heart says I must stay. The work supports me, fulfills me. In this place and time, it is all I am. Can you understand that?”
A nod, but at the same time, she sighed. “I do understand. But I do not agree. We all feel your pain, Zhandar, for your pain, at bottom, is Zhoraan’s pain as well.” She paused then, her gaze straying outside to the garden, and the plants and flowers shimmering and dancing in the springtime breeze. “But that pain is no excuse not to get on with your life. I cannot believe that Elzhair would want you to remain as you are forever.”
He wanted to fling back at her that she had not known Elzhair, and so Rozhara could not have any idea what the other woman would have wanted. But he knew that his counselor had seen Elzhair’s profile, had known of his late wife’s loving heart, her compassion, and so was not speaking out of hand. It was true. Elzhair would not have wanted him to become the automaton he’d been for the last year, functioning but not living.
“Not forever, Rozhara,” he allowed at last. “But for the foreseeable future, I fear.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Zhoraan,” Gabriel Brant said, switching on a holo-projector. At once a 3-D image of a blue-green planet shimmered into the air in the center of the conference room. Two moons, smaller than Gaia’s own satellite, orbited the world. “You’ve heard of it, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Trinity replied cautiously. After her initial debriefing with Brant, she’d been led from that small interrogation room to, not a cell, but a small suite complete with a separate bedroom, sitting area, and refrigeration unit. There were pouches of water in the refrigerator but nothing else, and in the closet in the bedroom, she found several changes of clothing, all in her size. She wouldn’t question where all this had come from or why it was being provided for her; apparently her status as a “secret weapon” was enough to merit special treatment.
And now it seemed she was to find out what being a secret weapon entailed. But Zhoraan? What did they expect her to do on that mysterious alien world? She’d never even been as far as Gaia’s moon. She knew absolutely nothing about interacting with alien races.
“I’ll speak frankly with you, Trinity,” Gabriel said. He wore another of those not-quite smiles, and she wondered if he intended them to be ingratiating. If that was the case, he’d missed the mark by about a kilometer. All those smiles did was get her hackles up, especially since she couldn’t read him unless he allowed her to. “The Consortium’s mission is to expand into the galaxy, to ease the burden of over-population through colonization.”
She nodded but didn’t speak. That was common knowledge. More than once she’d considered joining a colony herself, just to get away from Gaia, to get the fresh start that even moving to a new city didn’t seem able to provide her. Every time she’d gotten close to applying for colonist status, however, she’d backed out at the la
st minute. The psych evaluations and physical testing were well known to be rigorous, and she worried that the Consortium’s doctors and psychologists might somehow ferret out her secrets, might realize there was a little more to Trinity Knox than what you could see from the outside.
“The Zhore, on the other hand,” Brant went on, “have always more or less remained on their own world, save for the very occasional traveler here and there. That is why, until recently, we haven’t paid them much mind, except to make the usual diplomatic overtures. Our energies were consumed in fighting the Stacians, and, to a lesser extent, the Eridanis.”
“The Eridanis?” Trinity echoed, surprised. “But I thought they were our allies.”
A smirk. She was beginning to really hate those, especially since she knew he was wearing that sarcastic smile because he thought her foolish and naïve. “The Consortium has no true allies, Trinity. We pay lip service to the treaties we have with the Eridanis, but because they are building their own empire — albeit slowly — we must view them as competitors for the same resources. Which brings us to the Zhore.”
The projected image shifted, this time showing a dark, sullen-looking world covered in gray clouds. “This is a colony planet called Lathvin IV. And on this world, something extraordinarily disturbing took place approximately six standard months ago.”
“What?” she asked. The place was clearly undergoing intensive terraforming, judging by its cloud cover. Had some sort of environmental catastrophe taken place there?
“You may not be aware of this — Lathvin IV is an obscure little planet — but our colonists there have had to share that world with some of the Zhore, as there is an ongoing dispute as to which government had first rights of colonization. So humans live, if not precisely side by side with the aliens, at least in close proximity to them.”
That sounded ominous, and she could tell she wasn’t going to like where Gabriel intended to steer the conversation. At the same time, she was beginning to realize that Gabriel Brant was one of those men in love with the sound of his own voice. But since she wasn’t locked up in a prison cell, or being sent to the MaxSec prison on Titan, she figured it was in her best interests to indulge him and appear absorbed by what he was saying, although every instinct was telling her to get the hell out.
Not that her captors would actually let her go.
“A little more than a standard year ago, one of the young female colonists on Lathvin IV went to live with one of the Zhore, for reasons we still haven’t been able to adequately determine. And some time after that, she bore a child to this Zhore, a son.”
That revelation made Trinity sit up a little straighter in her seat. “Wait — humans and Zhore can have sex? But they’re aliens!”
Well, strictly speaking, all of them were — the Eridanis and the Stacians as well. But at least everyone knew what an Eridani or a Stacian looked like. They were humanoid, if not exactly human stock. Anyway, humanity had been interbreeding with the Eridanis for generations now. Trinity had no idea whether any human had been brave enough to have sex with a Stacian. They were a fearsome-looking warrior race, bigger than humans, but still recognizably humanoid — two legs, two arms, two eyes, a nose and a mouth.
The Zhore, on the other hand…as far as Trinity knew, no human being had ever seen what a Zhore looked like. They could be hiding anything under the black hooded robes they wore at all times. To think that a human woman had actually slept with one of them, let alone had borne him a child — well, that was something she would have never thought possible.
“Yes, alien,” Brant said. “But apparently not too alien. We still couldn’t get any real information on their appearance, though — this young woman and her family were being remarkably close-lipped about the whole thing. Bringing any of them in for questioning would have sparked a diplomatic incident, since it seems she married this Zhore, and is now bound to him by his home world’s laws. You see the difficulty.”
Trinity nodded. Her brain was still trying to digest the concept of marrying a Zhore and bearing his child, but she could tell that Gabriel didn’t want her to interrupt with what he no doubt would consider foolish questions.
“Three standard months ago, however, we had a stroke of luck. One of our operatives on Bathsheva was contacted by the leader of a mercenary clan there. This man said he had something we might find of value.”
Again Trinity nodded. Brant might be a closed book to her, but every once in a while she got the faintest glimpse of one of those pages. Right now, that little glimmer meant he wanted her to acknowledge how clever he was, but in a way that wouldn’t interrupt the flow of his narrative.
As for Bathsheva, she didn’t know much about the world, except that it was in the outer territories, and supposedly a rough planet populated by a number of interrelated clans, most of whom seemed to be weapons-for-hire of some sort. It probably was the kind of place where the Consortium would have operatives placed, not only to hire mercs when the situation warranted, but also to keep track of who else was hiring them, and why.
Gabriel continued, “That something was the body of a Zhore.”
She definitely hadn’t been expecting that bit of information. Forgetting that she was supposed to be Brant’s rapt audience and keep her mouth shut, she asked, “What was a Zhore doing on Bathsheva?” True, the secretive Zhore didn’t keep completely to their home world, but on the other hand, it seemed that those of its people who did venture out into the galaxy generally chose more civilized places, such as Nova Angeles or Eridani.
“We still don’t know for sure. What’s important is that we were able to procure a Zhore for study purposes, and also to hack his tech to see if we could find anything valuable.”
“Wouldn’t the Bathshevans have already done that?”
At her question, Brant scowled. Clearly, he didn’t want her acting as if she could form a single independent thought. She was supposed to be his puppet, no more.
Well, we may have a little problem with that, Mr. Brant. I’m not quite as stupid as you think.
Although, after the way Caleb had gulled her, she could see why Gabriel Brant had a fairly low opinion of her intelligence.
But then — well, she didn’t know exactly what his title was, but she’d already begun to think of him as her handler — he gave her an indulgent smile and replied, “That’s against their code, Ms. Knox. If a Bathshevan has something he wants to sell, he has to ensure that it’s unsullied, untouched. Which means the Zhore handed over to us was in perfect condition, except for the injuries that took his life, and the handheld he carried was likewise undisturbed.”
“Injuries?”
“Apparently he was set upon by what the Bathshevans refer to as a xeno, or outsider. One who is lawless, outside their clan structure. The motive was simple robbery, most likely, but the xeno was chased off by members of the clan who contacted us. They could do nothing to save the Zhore’s life, but, being practical people, they recognized the body’s worth. And so it came to the Consortium.”
Brant pushed a button on the handheld. “I think you’ll find this very interesting.”
The image of Lathvin IV, which had been swirling in the center of the room the entire time, looking like the planetary equivalent of a very bad bruise, switched over to a dark human form lying on a gurney.
No, not human, Trinity realized. Zhore.
He — and it was a he, despite the long silky black hair that had been arranged to lie neatly on either side of his head — was definitely alien. The skin was black as well, but seemed to gleam faintly with the sort of rainbow reflections you might see on an oil slick. Looking closer, she saw that those reflections came from thousands of tiny scales, much smaller than anything she’d seen on a snake in a zoo. The Zhore male’s nose was long, his chin proud. His hands, lying next to his still body, were also covered with scales, the nails black and flat.
Alien, but oddly, strangely beautiful. That shimmering skin couldn’t obscure the finely honed planes of hi
s face, just as the shapeless hospital gown someone had put on the corpse couldn’t hide the width of his shoulders, the strong muscles of his legs and arms.
And staring at him, knowing that he’d died far from his world, from his family, Trinity felt pity stirring in her chest. She knew he was dead, his mind and spirit long gone, but something in her wished she could go to him and hold him, whisper that it was all right and that he would be sent home to sleep in the earth of his home world, rather than kept as a specimen in a lab for all eternity.
The door to the conference room opened, and a young Asian man probably close to Trinity’s age walked in. Without looking at her, he said to Brant, “Empathy. Compassion. This is risky.”
Blinking, she glanced from the stranger over to Gabriel. “Excuse me?”
Without missing a beat, he said, “Trinity, this is Blake Chu. He’s our…well, you could say he’s our resident psychic.”
What the…. She refocused her attention on Blake. Now that she was looking a little more closely, she realized he was probably a few years older than she, maybe as much as thirty standard. His hair was cut so short it bristled all over his head, and he wore glasses — an affectation, she knew, since everyone these days had corrective surgery to repair minor defects such as myopia.
Didn’t your mother ever teach you it was rude to stare? he thought at her, and she jumped. She’d never had anyone directly invade her thoughts like that before. She’d always been the one reading other people, not vice versa.
I don’t know…didn’t yours ever teach you that it was rude to barge into someone else’s brain without permission?
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